With Great Love
by nicnac918
Summary: When five year old Dipper and Mabel are orphaned, Grunkle Stan ends up taking them in. Gravity Falls will never be the same. Elementary Falls AU one-shot collection, sequel to The Small Things
1. Taking Care

AN: There was a moment in "The Small Things" that was really important to Dipper, but the reader didn't get to see it since that story was Stan POV. So here's that part perspective flipped for you.

* * *

Dipper remembers a time a really long time ago when he was really little, so little that he was still Mason. Mabel had tripped over Mason's favorite dinosaur toy and broke it and hurt her knee. Grandpa Shermie cleaned up her boo-boo and put a band-aid on it and kissed it, but Mabel kept crying and crying because she wanted Mason to kiss it better. Mason didn't want to kiss it better because he was really mad at Mabel for breaking his favorite dinosaur toy, but Grandpa Shermie said he had to. So Mason kissed Mabel's knee on top of her band-aid and Mabel stopped crying and she said sorry to Mason for breaking his favorite dinosaur toy and gave him a hug. Then Mason wasn't mad anymore, because Mabel said she was sorry and also Mason liked hugs from his sister almost as much as his favorite dinosaur toy.

After Mason and Mabel made up, Grandpa Shermie said to them in his serious voice, "Now Mason, I want you to remember that you've got to take care of your sister when she needs you. And you Mabel, you've got to take care of your brother. The two of you are twins, so that means you stick together and watch out for each other, no matter what or how angry you get. Okay?"

"Okay," Mason and Mabel agreed.

"Good. Because if the two of you don't take care of each other, then you might turn around one day and realize you've lost each other, maybe even for good. And I don't ever want that to happen to you." Grandpa Shermie looked really sad when he said that, so Mason and Mabel gave him a hug, and that's as much as Dipper remembers.

Dipper knows he has to take care of Mabel right now because she needs him, except, no matter how much they ask and say please and promise to be good, Aunt Karen won't give Mabel's scarf back. Dipper isn't tall enough to take the scarf out of Aunt Karen's purse, and he thinks Aunt Karen would notice if he tried to get a chair so he can reach. So Dipper will just have to take care of Mabel a different way.

He waits until Aunt Karen is busy talking with some old lady who called Dipper 'Mason,' even though that's not his name any more, and said she was a friend of Grandpa Shermie's. When they aren't looking at Dipper or Mabel anymore, he grabs his sister's hand and starts walking away.

"Where are we going?" Mabel asks.

"To hide from Aunt Karen," Dipper tells her. Mabel nods because it's a good idea because Aunt Karen is mean and they don't want to have to spend time with her.

Dipper finds a door to another room and in that room there's a big cabinet. They decide that's the best hiding place because Aunt Karen probably won't find them in there even if she looks for _hours_. The inside of the cabinet is dark, but they aren't scared because it's big enough for the both of them, but it's still way too small to fit any monsters. And there aren't any spiders because Dipper, who isn't afraid of spiders because Grandpa Shermie told him that spiders are the good bugs who eat all the other bad bugs, checked for them for Mabel before they crawled in. The cabinet is perfect because it's dark and quiet and safe and there's no Aunt Karen to be mean or take their things.

"We should stay here until Aunt Karen leaves for Alabama, so we don't hafta go with her," Mabel says.

Dipper agrees. He doesn't think it works like that, because he thinks that they're supposed to live with Aunt Karen now and she won't leave until she has them, but it's still a good plan and they should try it.

They sit quietly as they can for a really long time, hoping no one will find them, but then Mabel starts crying again.

"Dipper, I wanna go home. And I want Grandpa Shermie," she says.

Dipper doesn't know what to do. He can't get Grandpa Shermie because Miss Joann says Grandpa Shermie is gone forever just like their mom and dad, and he can't kiss it and make it better because Mabel hurts on the inside in her chest and her tummy, and he can't get her scarf for her to hide her face in like she likes to do when she hurts on the inside because Aunt Karen has it. He doesn't even have a blanket to use instead.

Then Dipper remembers that the suit Miss Joann made him put on his morning has a jacket and a jacket is kinda like a blanket. "I have an idea," Dipper whispers to Mabel. He takes it off and puts it on Mabel's head to hide her face. Dipper hugs her so even though Mabel can't see him she knows he's here taking care of her. "See. Almost as good as Scarf Town." Then the door to the cabinet opens.

Dipper doesn't know if he likes Grunkle Stan. Grunkle Stan did say he was gonna get Mabel's scarf from Aunt Karen, and sometimes grown-ups can make other grown-ups do things that kids can't, and Mabel likes him, which most of the time is enough for Dipper because Dipper is really smart with numbers and words, but Mabel is really smart with people. But Grunkle Stan also made Mabel cry and he has a secret with those funny gloves of his, so Dipper doesn't know.

"Though I got say you're handling this surprisingly well," Grunkle Stan says after Dipper tells him he's a big boy and doesn't need to be carried. People keep saying that stuff to Dipper, Grunkle Stan and Miss Joann and Miss Katy, the lady with Child Protected Services, and he doesn't know why. Dipper isn't doing good, he hurts a lot on the inside and he has lots of feelings that are weird and he doesn't understand and are too big for him. But Mabel's feelings are even bigger than Dipper's and they make her cry all the time, so Dipper has to take care of her.

"Mabel needs me," Dipper says and he glares at Grunkle Stan waiting for him to say that Dipper shouldn't worry about that and he should let the grown-ups take care of them both. Nobody thinks Dipper can take care of Mabel because he's too little and too hurt, but he _can_. He has to, because he's already lost Grandpa Shermie and he can't lose Mabel too.

Grunkle Stan hugs Dipper sideways and smiles at him. "You're a good kid."

Dipper smiles back and then grabs onto Grunkle Stan and holds him tight. Grunkle Stan doesn't think he's too small or too hurt to take care of Mabel. Grunkle Stan thinks he _can_ take care of Mabel and thinks he's doing a good job taking care of Mabel, and Dipper isn't going to lose his sister too.

Dipper's feelings get even too much bigger until they come right out of his eyes and all over Grunkle Stan's jacket. But that's okay. Because Grunkle Stan knows how important it is for Dipper to take care of Mabel just like Grandpa Shermie did. So Grunkle Stan can make sure that Dipper takes good care of Mabel, and it's probably okay if Dipper even lets Grunkle Stan help take care of Mabel.

And maybe if Dipper is really good and does a really good job of taking care of Mabel, Grunkle Stan and Mabel will help take care of Dipper too.


	2. Build a Family

AN: Because FFN doesn't have a series tool, I thought I'd make things a bit easier on people by collecting all the Elementary Falls AU one shots (aside from the first one, The Small Things, which works fine as a stand alone piece) into a single fic. This fic will be left marked as complete, but I may still add more to it if/when inspiration for more one-shots strike.

* * *

It wasn't until Stan drove past the sign for Gravity Falls that it occurred to him to start worrying.

Not about his decision to take Dipper and Mabel in and raise them himself; that he had been worried about almost since the moment he'd made it. Gravity Falls was no place to raise a pair of precocious and curious little kids. There wasn't anything particularly wrong with the town itself and the people, while quite literally some of the dumbest people on the entire planet, were mostly well-meaning. But there was more to Gravity Falls than met the eye, and the one thing Stan knew about all that weird stuff was that it could be very dangerous. What did he think he was doing, taking these two kids up to a place like that? Hell, what did he think he was doing taking in two kids at all? He didn't know anything about raising kids. Well, okay, maybe he knew a thing or two, which was exactly the problem.

Stan wasn't an idiot; he knew how Soos felt about him. And maybe Stan returned some most all of those feelings. And hey, could you blame him? Soos was one of the most easy-going good-natured kids Stan had ever met, and he was the first person in a very long time who seemed happy just to have Stan around. The thing was, Soos was also pretty obviously hoping that Stan would adopt him one day, and that wasn't going to happen.

Things were different with Dipper and Mabel, and not because they were his blood relatives, or because Soos had done anything wrong. It was just that those two little kids sleeping away in the back seat of his car didn't have anyone else in the world to look out for them – well, no one besides their Aunt Karen, which, ugh, no, she was the worst. So no matter how many different ways Stan could imagine this going horribly, horribly wrong, in the end he had to take Dipper and Mabel in because they needed him. Soos, on the other hand, had his Abuelita looking out for him, and Stan knew first-hand how protective that woman could be. And then there was the never-ending parade of aunts and uncles and cousins, all of whom would be there for Soos in a heartbeat if he ever needed them. So yeah, Stan would take the space that Soos carved out for him, but he wasn't going to get in the way of family.

He just wasn't sure that Soos would see it that way. And the last thing that kid needed was to feel like he was being abandoned by his dad again.

Finally, Stan pulled his car up to the Mystery Shack. "Hey kids, time to–"

The sound of a door slamming open caught Stan's attention, and he looked over at the Shack where Soos was now making a beeline for them. "What the?" Stan got out of the car, and then immediately had to throw his hands up out of the way when Soos launched himself at Stan's chest.

"Mr. Pines! I thought you got eaten by coyotes," he wailed.

"What're you talking about? I'm fine."

"You said you'd be gone for a week and it's been ten days," Soos said. Stan did vaguely remember telling Soos he thought he'd be back in a week when he left, but it hadn't occurred to him to call and let the kid know things were going to be taking longer than expected. Crap. Soos's Abuelita was going to be giving Stan an earful tonight.

"Hey, I'm sorry," Stan said, awkwardly patting the top of Soos's head. "Things at my brothers place just took longer than I was expecting, is all."

"Your brother! Are you doing okay Mr. Pines; do you need a hug?"

"Soos, you are literally hugging me right now," Stan pointed out.

"Oh, right," Soos said, finally letting go. He unabashedly wiped his snot and tears off on his arm, before turning to take in the sight of the trailer Stan had hooked up behind his car. "Wow, that's a lot of stuff. What all did you bring back with you?"

As if on cue, the back door to the car opened and the sleepy-eyed twins piled out. "Grunkle Stan, who was yelling?" Mabel asked.

Alright, time to face the music. "Kids, meet my handyman, Soos. Soos, these are my great-niece and nephew, Mabel and Dipper. They were living with their grandpa before, and now I guess I'm going to be taking care of them."

"Does Grunkle Stan take care of you too?" Dipper asked Soos.

"Well, I live with my Abuelita, but yeah, I guess Mr. Pines takes care of me too, some," Soos said. He didn't seem upset, which in Soos's case meant that he wasn't; the kid was no good at hiding his emotions. "Don't worry, little dudes, your uncle is going to take great care of you."

"Does that mean you're our big brother now?" Mabel said.

"That's not exactly–"

But apparently Mabel had gotten the idea into her head, because she interrupted Stan with a chant of "Big brother, big brother, big brother," and after a moment Dipper joined in. Then Soos looked at him with big pleading eyes, and really, there was no way Stan wasn't going to cave.

"Alright, alright, you kids can do what you want. What do I care?"

"Yay!" Dipper and Mabel cheered, each grabbing on to one of Soos's hands.

"I've always wanted a little brother or sister," Soos said excitedly. "Just wait, little dudes, I'm going to be the best big brother ever. I'll teach you how to fix all the stuff around the Shack and we can bake cookies together and go exploring and go to the lake and I'll scare off anyone who tries to bully you and…"

"And you can start by helping me to bring all their stuff in," Stan ordered.

"Sure thing, Mr. Pines," Soos said, reaching in the back seat to grab the kids' backpacks and hoist one over each shoulder. Then he grabbed Dipper and Mabel's hands again and led them inside, going right back to chattering away at them about all the things they were going to do together.

Whaddya know. Maybe, just this once, he'd been worried over nothing.


	3. Once Upon a Time in New Jersey

"Sorry about the sleeping arrangements, kids," Stan said, tucking Dipper and Mabel in side-by-side in his own bed. "We'll get your room set up tomorrow, I promise. Goodnight, and I'll see you in the morning."

"Our story, Grunkle Stan," Mabel protested.

"Stories," corrected Dipper. They insisted on two stories every night: one for Dipper and one for Mabel.

"I don't know where your books are right now. I mean, they're in one of these boxes, but I don't know which one. How about I read you four stories tomorrow night instead, huh?"

"You can make up the stories," Dipper suggested.

"I want mine to be about twins!" Mabel exclaimed.

Now there was an idea. There was no doubt that Stan was good at making up stories; it was practically what he did for a living. But when it came to stories about twins, he didn't necessarily need to make any up. He wasn't ready to tell the kids the full truth yet, because he didn't think they were really old enough to understand – hell, even he didn't fully understand it, and he'd lived it – and they weren't old enough to get how important it was to keep everything a secret. But they were definitely old enough for a story or two.

"Our story begins in 1960-something, in Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey."

"Grunkle _Stan_ ," Mabel interrupted, "a story has to begin with 'once upon a time.'"

"Alright, yeesh. Once upon a time, in Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey there was a pair of twins: two boys –"

"Boo!"

"Hey, who's telling this story here, me or you?" Mabel pouted and crossed her arms, but didn't offer and more objections, so Stan continued. "Like I was saying, they were twin boys named… Sixer and, uh, Lee."

"Sixer is a weird name," Dipper said, which was pretty rich coming from someone who wanted people to call him Dipper.

"Everyone's a critic. For your information, Sixer was his nickname. You see, the kids were practically identical, except Sixer had six fingers on each of his hands."

"Like your funny gloves," said Dipper.

"Do you kids want to hear the story or not?" Stan demanded, using his annoyance to cover for the fact that he really didn't want to address Dipper's comment at the moment.

"Yes, Grunkle Stan," the kids chorused.

"Then be quiet for a minute and let me tell it. Now, Sixer and Lee spent a lot of time wandering the beach looking for adventures…"

Despite the constant interruptions, something about his story about him and Ford finding that old sailboat and stealing it away from the pirate ghosts haunting it – okay, maybe that part he made up – must've gone over real well with the kids, because when it was Dipper's turn for a story he asked for another one about Sixer and Lee. And both of them asked for one again the next night, and the next. The night after that they both wanted something different, but over the years, they kept coming back to Sixer and Lee.

* * *

Stan's footsteps felt heavy as he walked up to the twins' attic room. He'd been putting off telling them the truth about what was going on for three and a half years, constantly rationalizing to himself that they were too young to know. He had thought maybe after they'd turned ten, not on their birthday itself because that day should be about them, not Stan and his greatest screw-up, but the day after… But then here he was, with the kids not quite nine years old yet, and with a timer ticking down, maybe a week or two at the most, until everything came out, one way or another. And if it all worked out, this would be Stan's greatest achievement. He just wasn't sure the kids would see it that way.

When he pushed the door to their bedroom open, both kids were fast asleep, which, of course they were; Stan had put them to bed himself hours ago, before he started working on the portal. One of them must've had a nightmare earlier, because they were now both curled up together in Mabel's bed. Stan watched them both for a minute, then decide to go back downstairs. He had to tell them soon, but he could wait until morning at least, couldn't he?

"Grunkle Stan?" came Mabel's confused and bleary voice.

"Hey sweetie. I just came to bring you up your book," Stan said, walking over to Mabel's bedside table and putting Journal #2 on it. His copy of the pages was still nestled safely down in the basement, right next to the photocopy of Journal #3 and the actual Journal #1. "I'm all done with it. Thanks for getting it for me."

"Aww, shucks, Grunkle Stan," Mabel said, sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "I didn't do anything."

"Sure you did. Do you think Gideon would have brought that thing over here if it weren't for you? Kid you gotta understand how important these Journals are. I…" Stan paused. He still didn't know if he could do this, but he couldn't not say anything. He sat down on sideways on Mabel's bed and steeled himself. "Hey Mabel, wake your brother up; I've got a story I want to tell you both."

Mabel laid her head back down on the pillow, so she was about an inch away from her brother's face, and then screamed, "Wake up!" That didn't really seem to be the best way to go about it, but then, Stan couldn't argue with results.

"Mabel? What's going on?" Dipper asked, instantly alert and a bit frightened. Guess that answered the question of who had had the nightmare.

"Grunkle Stan is going to tell us a story."

"In the middle of the night?" Dipper said incredulously.

"Anytime is a good time for a story," Mabel said. "What's this one about?"

"Sixer and Lee. It's one I haven't told you kids before," said Stan.

"Yay!" Mabel cheered, and Dipper's earlier skepticism seemed to vanish in the face of his excitement to hear a story on their favorite subject. "Once upon a time in New Jersey there was a pair of twins named Sixer and Lee," Mabel began.

And so Stan told them. A bit haltingly at first, but his voice got steadier as he got lost in the flow of the memories, of the science fair and West Coast Tech and realizing that he was going to lose his brother and making the second biggest mistake of his life. He was so absorbed in the story that it startled him when Mabel interrupted.

"You're telling it wrong!"

"Yeah, there's no way Sixer would just let their dad kick Lee out," Dipper agreed.

"You gotta understand, Sixer was really upset. He just lost out on his chance to get into his dream school because of Lee. And yeah, maybe it was an accident, but Lee still should have told Sixer about it, so he could fix it." Stan still didn't think he deserved getting kicked out back then, and having some small show of support or sympathy from Ford, even if it hadn't made any difference in the end, would have meant the world to him. But after years and years of thinking it over, he thought he maybe got what Ford had been going through, at least a little bit. "Besides, Sixer was a teenager and one thing I can tell you about teenagers is they're all idiots. Even, no, especially the smart ones."

Mabel threw her arms around her brother. "I promise I'll never ever let Grunkle Stan kick you out, Dipper, no matter how stupid a teenager you turn into."

"Me too," Dipper said.

"Hey, hey, nobody is kicking anybody out," Stan said. "Do you two have any idea how hard it is to get child labor that's both free and mostly legal?"

"And because you love us too much and you're way better at being a dad than the stupid poophead in the story," Mabel said, dragging Dipper with her so they could both grab Stan in a group hug.

Stan found himself rapidly blinking – just to clear out the dust that got in his eyes! Yeah, dust. "Thanks kid. That, that means a lot. And things did get a lot better for Lee, eventually."

"You promise?"

Stan looked at the two of them, staring up at him with hope and trust and love shining in their eyes. "Yeah, I promise.

"But first he had to spend some years as a traveling salesman," Stan said, continuing his story. "I mean, he tried the treasure hunting thing first, but it turns out that gold is some kind of rare metal, so he became a traveling salesman instead. And he did" – cold winter days, huddled and shivering in his car; hot summer nights, sweating in a Columbian jail cell; the taste of blood in his mouth as he chewed his way out of the trunk of a car – "alright. Then, over ten years later, Lee was living in New Mexico when he got a postcard in the mail. It was from his brother, and all it said on it was 'please come.' And on the other side was 'Gravity Falls.'"

Dipper squealed in excitement. "I was right: Sixer did write the Journals!"

"What, because of the six fingers? I'm not saying you're wrong kid, but you know that Sixer wasn't exactly the only person in the world with polydactyly." Something Shermie always used to tell Ford was that one in five hundred babies was born with some kind of extra fingers or toes. Stan didn't know for sure if that was true, but Shermie was definitely the kind to do the research, if only so no one could call him out as wrong later.

"Sixer had a pet dinosaur?" Mabel exclaimed.

"No, polydactyly," Dipper said, stumbling over the word a bit like someone who'd only read it before and not heard it out loud, "is when someone has more than five fingers or toes on each hand; I looked it up before. But how come you know that, Grunkle Stan?"

"What, I can't look things up?" Stan said. "But we're getting away from the story. So Lee gets this postcard in the mail and drops everything so he can drive up to Oregon to help his brother. Once he gets there, Sixer's house is all boarded up with signs telling people to stay out, and Sixer was paranoid and all strung out like he just drank a whole pitcher full of Mabel Juice. He showed Lee this portal he built that could open the door to other dimensions. He said he'd realized that the portal could be used by bad people to do bad things, so he had to shut it down and hide all his research notes. He gave the last of the notes to Lee and told him to take them to the ends of the Earth where no one would ever find them.

"Now, maybe Sixer didn't mean it the way Lee took it, but it sounded to him like Sixer called him all the way across the country just to tell Lee to get as far away from Sixer as possible. So Lee got mad and threatened to burn Sixer's notes. Then Sixer got mad and the two of them started fighting. They were both so angry they didn't notice until too late that the portal had gotten turned on accidentally. Sixer got sucked in and then the portal shut back down, leaving Lee all alone again.

"He tried for weeks to get the portal working, but without all his brother's notes he couldn't figure it out. Eventually he ran out of food and had to go into town to get more, but when he got there everyone confused him for Sixer. And that's when Lee realized, if he told everyone that he was Sixer, then no one would ever try and come to kick him out of Sixer's house, and he could have as long as it took to bring his brother back."

It was silent for a moment or two, before Mabel busted out with, "And then what happened?"

"I don't know, kiddo. That's pretty much as far as I've got."

Mabel blew a raspberry. "That's a terrible ending, Grunkle Stan. Oh, I know! Next the super twins Mabel and Dipper heard all about sad story of Sixer and Lee and decided to help. And so they and their Grunkle Stan and their big brother Soos used the power of the Journals to work together with Lee and fix the portal. Then Sixer was saved and he and Lee hugged all their problems out, and everyone lived happily ever after."

"Is that right? I gotta say, that sounds like a pretty good ending to me. I hope that's how it works out," Stan said.

"I know that's how it works out. The power of Mabel will make it so," she declared.

"Yeah, well the power of Mabel needs her beauty rest before she does anything else," said Stan, getting up. "I'll see you two in the morning.

"Goodnight, Grunkle Stan. We love you."

"I love you kids too."

Stan flicked off the light to their room, and was about to leave when Dipper called out to him. "Hey, Grunkle Stan? Did you ever have a brother?" That kid was way too smart sometimes.

"Course I did: your Grandpa Shermie. That's how I ended up with you two gremlins, remember?" Stan said easily.

"No, I mean did you ever have a _twin_ brother?"

"That is a very good question. Tell you what, why don't you ask me again in a week or two?" One way or another, it should all be over by then.


	4. Adventures in Babysitting

AN:Kind of jumping around a bit in the timeline here, so to clarify, this fic takes place on March 28, 2005, a couple of weeks before the main part of Security.

(I swear, I was going to do the 'Ford comes back' oneshot, but Wendy just kind of showed up, and I needed to work her in here first. But the next one will be Ford, definitely, probably, maybe I promise.)

* * *

"The kids just went down for their nap, and they were up pretty late last night and early this morning, so they should be sleeping the whole time I'm gone. You may _not_ help yourself to anything in the fridge, and stay out of the gift shop and the exhibit areas. Any questions?" Mr. Pines said.

Wendy shook her head. "Nah, I got this."

Mr. Pines looked at her suspiciously. "You sure you do?"

"I look after my little brothers all the time ever since Mom… all the time," Wendy assured him, trying to exude cool confidence.

"Heh, yeah I guess that's a rowdy bunch. Alright, but if the house isn't in one piece when I get back I'm not paying you," Mr. Pines said.

Wendy shrugged. That was fine by her, it's not like she was going to burn the place down and the kids were asleep, so they wouldn't do anything. Though she didn't think she should be blamed if Steve the tree-giant got mad and decided to punch a hole in the roof or something.

After Mr. Pines left, Wendy headed back up to the kids' bedroom. She hadn't thought to bring anything to do with her, so she sorted through the kids' picture books and picked out some of the wordiest ones to read while she was waiting. Yeah, they were little kid books, but it was something to do at least. She'd been reading for about an hour and a half or so when the worst possible thing, besides Steve attacking of course, happened. The twins woke up.

Dipper started it, but his moving around was enough to trigger Mabel too, and pretty soon Wendy had two little kids glaring at her suspiciously. "Who are you?" Dipper asked. "Where's Grunkle Stan?"

"Mr. Pines is gone," Wendy started to say, but Mabel cut her off.

"Grunkle Stan is _gone_?" she screeched, and then the two of them started crying. Not just a little bit either, but full on sobbing tantrums and that made Wendy want to cry some too. Mr. Pines was going to be back any minute now and he was going to be so mad when he saw she'd made his kids cry; he was going to refuse to pay her and then call her dad and tell him what a horrible job she'd done and Dad had been so proud of her, talking about what a hard-working girl he had and he'd been so sad ever since Mom and now he was going to be disappointed and Wendy didn't know what to _do_.

Wendy forced herself to take in a deep breath. First rule of dealing with little kids: never let them see you panic. Because then either they'll panic too, or take it as a sign of weakness and pounce. Then she stuck two fingers in her mouth, just like her dad taught her, and whistled a loud as she could. That startled Dipper and Mabel enough that they stopped crying for a second, and Wendy took advantage of that to say, in her best 'I'm a big kid so you have to listen to me' voice, "Mr. Pines is gone _to the store_ ," – well actually, Mr. Pines had been kinda vague about where he was going, but the store was probably a close enough guess – "and he'll be back soon. I'm your neighbor Wendy and I'm supposed to look after you both until then."

Mabel sniffed and rubbed her nose on her arm. "You mean like Ms. Joann?"

Wendy had no idea who Ms. Joann was, a character from a book or TV show or maybe one of the kids' old neighbors, but she did know what the right answer to that question was. "Yeah, just like Ms. Joann."

"Do you know how ta knit?" Mabel asked.

"No, but I'm really good at climbing trees," Wendy told her, and Mabel looked reasonably impressed.

"I want Grunkle Stan," Dipper said in a voice he probably thought sounded firm. It was kinda cute, actually. "When's he gonna be back?"

"I dunno, a couple of minutes?" Wendy said. Just then, she heard the sound of a car pulling up. "Or maybe right now. I'll race you guys downstairs to check."

Dipper and Mabel looked at each other, then her, then back to each other, and then, at the exact same time, climbed out of their beds and started running. Wendy chased after them, taking the lead just in time to fling open the back door for them so they could see Mr. Pines walking up.

"Grunkle Stan!" they both cried, and then took off running across the ground, not even caring about their bare feet – oh man, Wendy should have made them put on shoes before going outside, shouldn't she?

"Hey kids, when did you get up?" Mr. Pines asked, picking one up in each arm easily, like he'd had a lot of practice. The twins didn't answer, too busy sobbing even harder than they had back up in their room earlier. "Alright, alright, it's fine; I'm back now."

Somehow he managed to pay Wendy while juggling two kids that would not let themselves be put down for anything, and would not stop crying. Then Wendy walked home, trying to convince herself that everything had gone just fine.

The next morning her dad called her from out of her room and gave her a sort of look. "Stanford Pines just called again." Oh man, this was it. The kids had hated her and once Mr. Pines had a chance to think it over he was mad at her for making them cry and he was going to want his money back and her dad was going to be so disappointed and… "He said the kids loved you; kept asking when they were going to see you again once they calmed down. And, since his handyman is out of town for the rest of the week, he was hoping you'd go over there and keep an eye on the two of them while he was giving his Mr. Mystery tours. Said the kids probably shouldn't throw a tantrum so long as they know he's in the next room over."

Wendy blinked a couple of times. "But don't you need me to watch the boys?" she asked.

"Nah, Dan Jr. is old enough to keep an eye on his brothers now; you go out there and be a productive member of society," her dad said. Then he picked her up and gave her a bone-cracking hug. "I'm so proud of you girlie."

Wendy felt tears prickle in the corner of her eyes, and not just because the hug was kind of crushing her. It was just, her dad was always him and the boys out doing manly stuff and Wendy was always welcome to come of course, but it was weird having him tell them to do things "like a man," because Wendy was tough and strong as anyone, but she wasn't a man, and so ever since Mom, Wendy had been feeling kind of, well…

She threw her arms around her dad's neck and hugged him back just as tight. "I love you too, Daddy."

(Dipper and Mabel did end up throwing tantrums again, but only for two days out of the six that Wendy was down there, and they were pretty cool little kids otherwise. So even after the handyman, Soos, got back into town, on days when being in the house with her brothers and her dad just got to be too much, Wendy would slip off and walk down to the Mystery Shack "to help out with the kids." And most days Stan would slip her a soda or some ice cream and sometimes, when he and Soos were busy and the twins had Wendy running all over the place trying to keep an eye one them, even a dollar or two, and that was pretty cool too.)


	5. Security

One thing that Stan learned very quickly about his two new little niblets was that they were very clingy. On their good days it wasn't too much of a hassle. They were fine running around and doing their own thing in his general vicinity, and if he needed to he could leave them with Soos for a few hours without them kicking up a fuss. But only with Soos, and he had to come watch the kids at the Shack, Stan couldn't take them to wherever Soos was. Both lessons Stan had learned the hard way, very quickly turning a good day into a bad one. On the bad days, Dipper and Mabel would follow him around like an extra pair of shadows and tended to get anxious and prone to tantrums if he was out of their sight for longer than it took to use the bathroom, and sometimes not even that long. It was just lucky that the tourists thought Mr. Mystery giving tours with his two little 'grandkids' – grandkids sounded cuter than great-niece and nephew – was adorable.

Stan hadn't even enrolled them in school up here in Oregon yet. Granted, part of the reason for that was because the kids were only in kindergarten and Stan didn't see what they were going to learn there that they didn't already know. Mabel was a master of all kinds or arts and crafts, and as for Dipper, Stan had quickly figured out that whenever Mabel wanted her bedtime story from one of their ridiculously over-priced picture books – now that was a racket; ten bucks for a couple of pictures and less than 100 words of text – he could hand the book to Dipper, sit back, and only jump in when Dipper got to a word he couldn't quite handle yet. But the main reason that he hadn't was he was worried about how the kids would handle being stuck at school, and away from him, all day. He was starting to get worried about the whole situation, to be honest.

It was Soos who was finally able to tell Stan the reason for the whole thing, one day in between tours when the two of them were out on the porch watching the kids running around. "Well, you're kind of like their dad now, right dude? And before their grandpa was kind of like their dad, and they lost them. So now they're afraid of losing you too." Soos laughed nervously. "Or whatever. I mean, it's not like I would know anything about that."

"Soos, you're a genius!" Stan said. He let that sit in the air for a moment or two before following it with, "Now get back to work."

"Yes sir, Mr. Pines," Soos said, still looking starry-eyed from the compliment.

So now Stan knew what was wrong, but not how to fix it. Well, not besides just riding it out, since this seemed like one of those problems that would just go away on their own eventually. But still, there had to be something he could do to speed the whole thing up, or help somehow; the question was just what.

When the idea finally came to Stan it was in the middle of one of the kids' not so good days. Dipper had been the one who had started out the day anxious and fretful, and then he ended up dragging his sister's mood down with him, which was how was it happened more often than not. Of course, on the days when Mabel was in a bad mood, there was no one better at cheering her up than Dipper, so Stan supposed it all evened out in the end. Which was fine and good in the end, but today was a bit of a problem, since he had to get something out of his safe for this idea, and he didn't know how he was going to manage that without upsetting the kids; they weren't allow them in his study.

Finally he decided to throw one of their favorite videos in and sat down to watch it with them. By the time they got to the climax with the little detective mouse and the bad guy rat running around inside Big Ben, Stan was able to excuse himself for a few minutes without the kids' eyes ever once coming unglued from the screen. So Stan went and got what he needed, then came back and sat down in his chair as he waited for the movie to end.

The credits started rolling and Stan paused the video, prompting Mabel to turn around and demand, "Again, Grunkle Stan."

"Maybe in a minute," Stan told her. "I've got something I want to show you both first. Come over here."

Dipper and Mabel came and stood at the foot of his chair, and Stan handed each of them one of the thick cardstock sheets. They peered at them for a minute, then Mabel asked, "What's it say, Dipper?"

Dipper shook his head. "There are too many big words. Grunkle Stan?"

"Here let me see that, sweetie?" Stan said. He grabbed one end of Mabel's, letting her keep hold of the other side, and then used his free hand to point out the words as he read them out loud. "Certificate of Adoption. This is to certify that Mabel Pines has been formally adopted into the Pines family by Stanford Pines, and is entitled to all the rights and privileges there to as his daughter, on this 15th day of March 2005. Yours says the same thing, Dipper, except with your name and it says son instead of daughter."

"Does this mean you're our dad now?" Dipper asked.

"Legally speaking," Stan said. "But I don't want you kids thinking I'm trying to replace your dad. He was a good person and he and your mom loved both of you a lot. I don't know if you knew this, but I was there on the day you were born and let me tell you, your parents' reaction to the two of you was the sappiest thing I've ever seen." Though his and Shermie's reactions were probably a close second. "Besides he was your family, and you don't replace family.

"What this is, is a promise. I told you kids I would be taking care of you two little guys from now on; if you ever need me then I'm gonna be there for you, no matter what. And these are the proof I meant it."

That's when Dipper started crying.

"Whoa, hey there kiddo, what's wrong?" Stan asked. He picked the boy up and settled him on his lap, gently taking the certificate from him to place it safe on the side table. Dipper grabbed Stan's shirt tight in either fist and began sobbing into Stan's chest.

"Me too," Mabel cried, dropping her certificate heedlessly on the ground before clambering up on Stan's lap as well. She hugged her brother and Stan wrapped his arms around both of them.

"Now why don't you tell your sister and me why you're crying?"

"I don't like Aunt Karen," Dipper got out between sobs.

Well that wasn't what Stan had been expecting, but he could roll with it. "Can't say as I like her either. That's why I told her that I'd be the one taking you two kids home with me and not her."

"And you're never ever gonna make Dipper 'n me go ta Alabama to live with her, right?" Mabel said.

"Course not," Stan said, disgusted by the very idea.

"See Dipper, I told you."

Dipper nodded, but he didn't stop crying. If anything, he started crying even harder. That's when Stan realized, the kid wasn't upset at all; he was relieved. Apparently he had been worried this whole time that Stan was just going to change his mind one day and ship them off to their aunt.

"Alright, alright, I've got you," Stan said, hugging both kids close. "And I'm never letting you go."

(The next day, Stan made photocopies of the Adoption Certificates for the kids to keep before putting the originals back in his safe. Mabel had Stan hang hers up on the wall next to her bed, but Dipper turned him down when he offered to do the same thing for him. Stan might've been worried about it, but from that day on he often caught sight of a folded up piece of paper sticking up out of Dipper's back pocket.)


	6. Finding the Journals

Stan placed his list on the counter in the gift shop. "I've got an idea for a new exhibit, so Soos I'm going to need you to go get these things for me out of the spooky part of the forest."

"Sure thing, Mr. Pines," Soos said.

"Can I go too?" Stan peered over the counter to see Dipper, who had apparently been hiding behind the thing and scribbling in the extra notebook Stan had got him when he had been buying the kids' first grade school supplies.

Six months ago, Dipper had spotted a couple of gnomes rooting through the trash. At the time Stan had thought about blowing it off as a figment of Dipper's imagination, but then he realized that if the kids were going to be in Gravity Falls at least until they went off to college, then they were bound to figure out the truth eventually. And when that happened, they wouldn't thank Stan for lying to them. So he'd admitted that Gravity Falls wasn't exactly your typical small town, and ever since then Dipper had been real gung-ho about exploring all the weird things that went on around here. (Ford would have loved this kid, was going to love this kid, just as soon as Stan saved him.)

Stan's first instinct was to tell Dipper, no, he couldn't go, but he made himself think it over for a minute. In his experience, if a kid wanted something bad enough, and the adults kept telling him no, he'd find a way to do whatever it was anyway. And the only thing scarier than the idea of little six year old Dipper out there in the woods, was the idea of Dipper and Mabel both sneaking out there alone, and Stan with no idea where they'd gotten to. "Alright, but you stick close to your brother. Soos, you make sure you keep an eye on this little gremlin."

The kids both cheered and looked up at Stan like he hung the moon, and that made Stan feel like, yeah, this would probably work out okay.

A thought he was kicking himself for later when Dipper and Soos both came running out of the woods screaming his name. It only took him a moment or two to realize the looks on their faces and the tone of their voices were excited, not terrified, at which point he had to rest a hand down on the window sill to steady himself. His heart was not meant to take that kind of stress.

"Grunkle Stan, look what I found!" Dipper cried, and then he and Soos were tumbling over each other trying to tell Stan how they'd come across it. But Stan didn't hear a word of it, because in Dipper's hands was one of Ford's missing journals. Finally, after all these years, Stan might be able to get the portal working again, and _finally_ save Ford. Yeah, he was still one journal short, but now that he had two out of three…

"So can I keep it, Grunkle Stan?" Dipper asked, interrupting Stan's thoughts.

"Keep it?"

"Yeah, 'cause it's got all kinds of cool stuff about the weird things I've seen in Gravity Falls, see?" Dipper held the book open to show Stan, and Stan's heart nearly stopped again.

"When did you come across the undead?" Stan asked.

Dipper frowned and looked down at the book. "Sorry," he said, flipping it back a few pages to a picture of a gnome. Holy Moses, this kid was going to kill Stan.

Then Dipper turned his big pleading eyes up at Stan and hugged the book close to his chest. "See, it's really cool, so can I please keep it, please?"

One of these days Stan was going to have to learn to say no to that face. That day was not today, though. Besides, it might be a good idea for Dipper to have Ford's notes, not that he'd be able to read and understand most of them yet. Since Dipper was going to want to learn about the weird stuff regardless, having some information on how to protect himself could definitely be a good thing. "Alright kid, give me a chance to look through it first to make sure it's age-appropriate or whatever, and then you can keep it."

* * *

Stan opened the door and then groaned; apparently the little demon child had come to pay them a visit today.

"Hello Stanford Pines," Gideon chirped brightly. Stan glared at him.

"Mabel, get your keister down here," Stan called, not breaking his glare, despite the fact that Gideon didn't seem bothered in the least.

"Be there in one second," Mabel yelled back.

A car horn blared from outside, and Stan looked up to see Bud Gleeful waving at Gideon. "Bye son, I'll be back to pick you up later. You have fun now!" Then he turned his car around and drove off. Great, now Stan was stuck with the kid.

Just then, Stan heard his niece's footsteps pounding down the stairs, and he turned to share some of the glaring with her as well, though she looked about as cowed by it as Gideon. "You know you're not allowed to invite friends over without asking first."

"I didn't!" She protested, craning her head to see around Stan and practically cooing when she saw who was at the door. "Widdle Gideon!" Honestly, Stan didn't know what she saw in the creepy kid.

"Please don't be mad at Mabel, Stanford. I came here today of my own volition." See, what kind of five year old knew a word like 'volition?' Well, Ford might've, but Ford was a genius. This kid was just unnatural.

"Whatever. Just keep him out of my hair, Mabel. I've got TV to watch."

"Sure thing, Grunkle Stan," Mabel said, coming the rest of the way down the stairs and taking Gideon by the hand. "C'mon Gideon, let's go up to my room and give each other makeovers." Stan turned to leave.

"Actually, first I want to show you something I found in the woods." And then Stan turned right back around. Odds were that all the kid had found was a sparkly rock, Moses knew Mabel would love that, but when it came to Gravity Falls you could never be too careful. Gideon reached into the bag hanging off his shoulder and pulled out a very familiar red book with a six fingered golden hand and the number 2 on the cover. "Ta da! See, not only am I much cooler and a way better match for you as a twin than Dipper, now I even have a journal full of supernatural mysteries as well."

"And now I have one," Stan said, plucking the journal from Gideon's hands and somehow managing to maintain his outward semblance of cool, despite the fact he was practically screaming on the inside. He'd finally gotten his hands on the last journal.

"Hey, that is my journal," Gideon objected.

"And then I took it from you, and now it's mine," Stan said. Gideon's lower lip started to tremble, a sure sign of an oncoming tantrum, and Stan had had enough of those back when his kids had been five. He needed to nip this baby in the bud. "Look, after I'm done with it, I'll give it to Mabel to keep, alright?"

Mabel squealed with delight and threw her arms around Gideon, swinging him halfway around with the force of her hug. "Thank you so much for my present, you adorable thing you!"

"Of, of course. Anything for you Mabel," Gideon said, completely unaware of the thumbs up and wink she was throwing Stan over his shoulder.

That was Stan's girl.


	7. Avoiding Fleeing to Canada

On that particular day Soos had taken the day off to help Abuelita with something and Mabel was playing mini golf with her "best rival" Pacifica, so it was just Dipper and his Grunkle Stan working in the Mystery Shack when the government cars drove up. Grunkle Stan kicked everyone out and closed the gift shop, then nervously answered the door and did his best to get rid of the agents. But the two men came in anyway, saying they were conducting an investigation. And that's when Dipper had the Best Idea Ever.

"Wait, wait, did you guys say you're investigating the mysteries of this town?" he asked.

"That information is classified," the one agent said. Then he knelt down to look Dipper in the eye. "But yes. Look, between you and me, I believe there's a conspiracy of paranormal origin all connected to this town. We're just one small lead away from blowing the lid off this entire mystery."

"I know all kinds of stuff about the mysteries in this town!" Dipper exclaimed. "And if you guys helped I bet we could even –"

"I'm sorry agents," Grunkle Stan said, stepping in between Dipper and the two agents. "My son here has an overactive imagination."

Dipper froze. Grunkle Stan never called Dipper and Mabel his son and daughter. He called them his kids, and he let Mabel say he was like their dad and he hadn't said anything that one time Dipper had been feeling really upset and accidentally called him 'Dad,' but Grunkle Stan was pretty big on the whole 'not replacing family' thing, so he never actually called Dipper his son. Except when he was pulling a con.

Not counting having the help out around the Shack, Grunkle Stan didn't bring Dipper or Mabel or Soos into his cons very much. ("I'm just a grumpy old man and high school drop-out, but you kids are better than that.") But when he did the first, and really only, rule was to play along and follow his lead. And right now he was trusting Dipper to help him get rid of these government agents without them knowing anything about the weird stuff in Gravity Falls, so Dipper could do that.

"But Daaaad," Dipper said, doing his best whiny stupid little kid voice, "you said all this stuff was real."

"Of course it's real; anything you can imagine is real. Now why don't you go play while I talk to these nice men?"

"Fiiiinnne," Dipper said, walking off dragging his feet, then ducking behind one of the shelves in the gift shop so he could keep listening.

"Heh, heh, kids, am I right?" Grunkle Stan said. "Paranormal town stuff is just part of gift shop lore; sells more tickets, you know?"

"I see," said the lead agent. "Well if you do see anything please give us a call. For now we have other spots to investigate. We'll be on our way."

Dipper listened to them leaving, and once the door closed he ran over to peer outside the window to make sure they were really gone. Grunkle Stan came to stand beside him and gave Dipper a quick pat on the head. "Good job. I think the bratty kid thing really sold it."

"But why'd we have to get rid of them; they could have helped," Dipper said.

"Trust me, the cops hanging around is the last thing we need. Look, I know you like investigating all the weird stuff in this town, but-"

"No," Dipper interrupted, "They could've helped us get Grunkle Sixer back."

Grunkle Stan looked shocked, and Dipper stared up at him defiantly, daring him to try and lie about it. All the coincidences and little things that Grunkle Stan had said over the years, this was the only explanation that made sense. Even Mabel thought so, and she always told Dipper when his ideas were getting too crazy. (Though that wasn't as often as Dipper had to tell Mabel that her ideas were too crazy.)

Grunkle Stan gave a nervous laugh and shook his head. "You're too smart for my own good, you know that kid? But what I said still stands; we don't want any cops around poking their noses into our family business. You think those government suits are going to care about getting Sixer back? No, best case scenario they take the portal apart trying to figure out how it works. Worst case, they also try to arrest me for building it, and then I'd have to grab you kids and flee to Canada."

Dipper made a face. "I don't want to live in Canada."

"Neither do I," Grunkle Stan agreed. "And I do have a plan to get Sixer back, kiddo, I just need a little more time."

"Another week or two?" Dipper asked, remembering what Grunkle Stan had told him when Dipper had asked about him having a twin the other night.

"Just another week or two," Grunkle Stan agreed. "You can wait that long, can't you?"

Dipper nodded. "I was only trying to help."

"You were trying to… Dipper, who found Journal #3?"

"Soos and me did," Dipper said.

"And that little twerp Gideon never would have brought over Journal #2 if it weren't for your sister. And I know you're smart enough that you've figured out that those journals are Sixer's research notes, including how to make the portal work. I couldn't have done any of this without your help," Grunkle Stan said.

"You might've found the journals on your own anyway," said Dipper, but he was already feeling a lot better. Yeah, maybe Grunkle Stan could've found the journals on his own eventually, but Dipper was able to get it for him faster, and that was helping, right?

"Kid, I was living in Gravity Falls for over twenty years before you and your sister showed up; if I was going to find those journals on my own, I would have by then. Truth is," Grunkle Stan said, getting down on one knee and placing a hand on Dipper's shoulder, "you kids are the best thing that ever happened to me. And not just because you found the journals either."

"Even better than Grunkle Sixer?" Dipper asked, and then immediately regretted it. Grunkle Sixer was Grunkle Stan's _twin_ , and Dipper was just Dipper. How could he, even combined with Mabel and Soos, compete with that?

"I'm gonna tell you a secret kid," Grunkle Stan said, lowering his voice to a whisper. "Sixer is actually fifteen minutes older than me. So if anything, I happened to him."

"Does that mean I happened to Mabel?" asked Dipper.

"Sure does. The best thing that ever happened to her. And just wait, when I get Sixer back, you kids will be the best thing that ever happened to him too."

"Except for you," Dipper corrected, and that time it wasn't hard to say. If he could be the best thing that happened to Mabel and Grunkle Stan, two of his favorite people in the whole world, then he was okay with being second best for Grunkle Sixer.

"Yeah, something like that," Grunkle Stan said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Hey, your sister should be about done playing mini golf shouldn't she? Let's go pick her up."

"But wasn't Pacifica's driver supposed to… nevermind. I can't wait to tell Mabel everything!" In fact, Dipper was so excited that he completely forgot how nervous Grunkle Stan looked just a second ago. It was probably nothing anyway.


	8. Warm Welcomes and Cold Receptions

Ford had imagined reuniting with his brother hundreds, even thousands, of times over the past twenty-odd, or more, years. It was a fantasy that some small part of him clung to even after he accepted the impossibility of it ever actually happening. And yet with all his imagining he never pictured it happening like this, though who knows why; the whole thing just screamed Stanley. Ford thought that if Stan had seemed apologetic or worried, then Ford probably could have looked past the insanely risky stunt Stan had just pulled, and the fact that Stan had been the one to push Ford into the portal in the first place. The latter had been an accident, after all, not a deliberate betrayal like the last time Stan had ruined his life – and Ford was past that last time because they had both been stupid kids when it happened and now he was a full grown man in his fifties (sixties?) and petty childhood grudges were beneath him. They were.

But Stan didn't look apologetic or worried, he looked, well happy to see Ford for one, which was nice, but also proud of himself. Proud, as though he didn't care that all he'd done was fix his own mistake by making a catastrophically larger one. Ford felt his fingers curl into a fist, but before he could deliver the punch that Stan richly deserved, Ford himself was attacked: grabbed around the middle by two small beings calling him… Grunkle Sixer?

"Hey there kids," – children, of course they were normal human children. They were much too large to be gnomes, and too small to be a collection of gnomes standing on top of each other, and not nearly hairy enough to be dwarfs. The little girl in particular was lacking the full and elaborately braided beard favored by dwarf women. And that other being over there next to Stan probably wasn't one of the hairless gopher people of the dimension Rodentus 7, but an ordinary large young man, or possibly a very large and hairless regular gopher – "maybe we should start calling my brother by his real name now."

"You never told us his real name," the little boy objected, apparently seeing no need to let go of Ford to say it.

"Oh right," Stan said. "Kids, this is my brother, Stanford Pines. Though we mostly just called him Ford."

"But I thought _your_ name was Stanford," the little girl said.

Before Ford could say anything about Stanley having taken his name, the little boy interjected, "No, remember? Grunkle Stan, or Lee, had to pretend to be Sixer so he could stay at his house while he was trying to save him."

"Oh, right," the girl agreed. "Wait a second, Grunkle Stan, Lee… Grunkle Stan your real name is Stanley!"

"It sure is, pumpkin," Stan said, regarding the little girl with a fond look that seemed to Ford to be bizarre and out of place and familiar and nostalgic all at once. "I'm telling you Ford, these two kids, sharp as tacks, the pair of them. You're going to be proud."

Ford could see how, hypothetically, a person could be proud of these two children. They were a bit overly rambunctious, but they were also affectionate. They still hadn't stopped hugging Ford, and he was starting to feel awkward holding his arms out of the way, so he placed one hand on either of their shoulders. The little boy beamed up at him and the little girl squealed – in delight, he assumed – and rubbed her face into his shirt. Very affectionate. And while Ford wasn't sure whether Stan could be considered a great authority on recognizing intelligence, there was a reasonable possibility that these two were fairly smart. What Ford didn't know, was why he in particular should be proud. (And he was also getting fed up with the fact that he had finally made it home after well over two decades and he had yet to get a word in edgewise.)

"Stanley, what the heck is going on here? And who are these children?"

"They're your family, Poindexter. Shermie's grandkids," Stan said, clarifying the point before Ford could get too thrown by the notion of Stan procreating. Somehow it was easier to wrap his head around the idea of his nephew, who may well have been younger than these two were now the last time Ford had seen him, having children than Stan.

"I have a niece and nephew?" he asked, his tone softening as he looked at the children with new eyes.

"You sure do!" the little girl chirped. "I'm Mabel, and that's my twin brother Dipper, and that guy over there is our big brother Soos." She pointed first toward the little boy next to her, and then over to the almost certainly not a gopher who looked nothing like anyone in their family as far as Ford could recall.

"Unofficially," Stan added.

"Yes too officially," Mabel objected. "I made him an adoption certificate for his birthday last year and everything."

"That's right. Sorry sweetie, your Grunkle Stan has old man brain and he forgets things sometimes," Stan said, giving Ford a look like he was inviting him to share in on some joke.

Ford snapped at him. "Then let me remind you, you still haven't answered my other question: just what is going on here?"

"That's pretty obvious, isn't it? I just saved you from what appears to be, I dunno, some kind of sci-fi sideburn dimension."

"And we helped," Soos said.

"Yeah, Grunkle Si-Ford," Mabel agreed, excited. "Soos and Dipper found Journal #3 in the woods, and I used my feminine wiles to get Journal #2 from Gideon."

"And Grunkle Stan and me got rid of the government agents that were trying to find this place," Dipper added.

"Government… are you telling me that the US Government knows about my portal?!"

"Geez, calm down Sixer, the kid just told you we got rid of them, didn't he?" Stan said dismissively. "Some agents did come sniffing around the other day, but I told them that all the stories about weird stuff in this town were just stories, and they left. No one knows about this portal but us."

"I may have also told Wendy," Soos chimed in.

"Fantastic. That's just…" Ford trailed off, at a loss for words.

"Hey, Wendy's a good kid" – great, more children – "she won't tell nobody. It's going to be fine."

Ford reached beneath his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. Fine, he says, it's going to be fine. Stanley had just ignored the countless warnings that Ford had left and reactivated the portal managing only by what must have been sheer dumb luck to lock on to Ford in the Dimension Without Shrimp, rather than Bill in the Nightmare Realm, and destroyed the portal in the process. And while, aside from the part of him that was internally shrieking about his life's work, Ford could acknowledge that getting rid of the portal was probably the right thing to do, there were better ways to dismantle machinery that ran on _radioactive materials_ than all but blowing it up. Then, on top of all that, Stan had apparently decided that the appropriate confederates for this extremely dangerous venture of his was a pack of children. And he says it was going to be fine. "Stanley, can I talk to you in private for a minute?"

Stan finally had the decency to look a bit apprehensive. Good, maybe he was at least peripherally aware of how much he had screwed up then. "Look Ford, I know me and you got a lotta junk to sort through, but do we need to do it right now? I mean, the kids have been really excited to meet you, cooked up a special welcome dinner for you and everything."

"We even made Abuelita's tamales; they're the best!" Mabel said.

"Then later maybe you could tell us some stories about the stuff in your journals before we go to bed tonight?" Dipper asked, sounding both excited and nervous.

"And some more about your backstory; I need details so I can finish writing my fanfiction," Soos added.

"See, we got tamales and stories and fanfiction, whatever that is, to get to. The rest can wait a couple of hours, can't it?" Stan said.

Just then, Ford's stomach rumbled.

Mabel giggled. "I think your tummy is deciding for you, Grunkle Ford." She gave him one last squeeze and then finally released him from her hug, only to immediately grab ahold of his hand instead. Dipper followed suit, and neither of them showed any reaction whatsoever to his extra finger. They both had probably already known about them, of course, but knowing something was very different than experiencing it. And yet, neither of them seemed to care, instead chattering away at him about all the food that was waiting for them as they lead him upstairs.

The rest of the evening, despite some very unpleasant surprises once Ford saw what Stan had done to his house, was actually generally quite pleasant. The dinner they had made for him had been delicious, and his niece and nephew proved to be delightful children, if a bit odd and anxious, respectively. After dinner, Soos – who was frankly rather bizarre, but charming in his own way, Ford supposed – returned to his own home, and Dipper and Mabel asked to go to bed early, which turned out to be a ploy to get three straight hours of bedtime stories out of him. Eventually, Stan declared it to be time for sleep, and Ford helped tuck the kids in with promises of more stories the next night. Then Ford indulged himself in a long hot shower and fresh clean clothes, something that he had gotten on occasion during his days dimension-hopping, but sporadically enough for it to feel like a luxury. Finally, feeling more himself than he had in a long time, Ford went in search of his brother.

He found Stan standing in front of the mirror in the main hallway by the stairs, his gaze focused, but Ford suspected that his thoughts were a million miles away. Not wanting to startle Stan, Ford quietly came and stood alongside him. Stan smiled a little at seeing Ford's partial reflection in the mirror, and shuffled to the side a bit so they could both fully stand in front of the mirror.

"Look at us; when did we become old men?" Stan said, gazing at their reflections.

Ford looked sideways at the real Stanley, dressed up in their father's old suit and hat. "You look like Dad."

Stan made a noise of disgust and cringed away. "Don't say that," he objected, and they shared a small laugh.

Ford sighed. Pleasant evening or no, that didn't change what was between them, or what Stan had done. Stan may have been trying to delay the inevitable with this fun time with the kids, but, well, it was called inevitable for a reason. "Okay Stanley, here's the deal. You can stay here while you're watching the kids. I'll stay down in the basement and try to contain any remaining damage. But once the kids are gone, you give me my house back, you give me my name back, and this Mystery Shack junk is over forever. You got it?"

Stan laughed again, though this time it sounded nervous and forced. "You're joking right?"

"No, I am not joking Stanley. And I don't think I'm making an unreasonable request here," Ford said.

"You really aren't, are ya?" Stan said, looking at him in disbelief and disappointment. As if Stan had any right at all to be disappointed in him. "Were you not paying any attention tonight? Do you even care about the kids at all?"

"Of course I care about the kids," Ford said. Admittedly, he may not have been one hundred percent present this evening while talking to them, but that was only because he was worried about the wanton destruction that Stan had caused in the basement; it didn't mean Ford didn't care. "That's why I'm letting you stay here until the end of their visit."

"Visit? Ford, those kids _live_ here," Stan snapped at him.

"They live here? But their parents–"

"Got into a car crash when Dipper and Mabel where babies. They're dead. And, not that you asked, so are Mom and Dad and Shermie. Mom and Dad both got lung cancer – I hope for your sake you don't smoke, because I'm not having that around the kids and cold turkey is hell, trust me – and Shermie had a heart attack. We're the only family those kids have left. Well, I'm their family; I'm not so sure about you anymore."

"I…" But anything Ford might have said, and he didn't even know where to begin to try to respond to that, was cut off by a very conspicuous sniffle coming from the direction of the stairs.

Stan sighed. "Kids, what have I told you about eavesdropping?"

There was a long moment of absolute stillness, and then the two small children came out from around the corner. Ford braced himself for twin looks of betrayal, but the kids, who not that long ago had been begging him for one last bedtime story, wouldn't even look at him.

"Don't get caught," Mabel said dutifully. Because of course that was what Stan was teaching them.

"No," Stan corrected, "I said if you have to eavesdrop, don't get caught."

Ford didn't see the distinction, but the kids apparently did, because Dipper immediately protested, "But Grunkle Stan,"

"The only buts I want to see are two butts in bed by the time I get up to your room, got it?" Stan said, and the two obediently raced upstairs. As soon as they had both disappeared back around the corner, Stan slumped in on himself and began rubbing at his forehead. And, despite Stan's earlier comment about it, it was only then that Ford noticed how old Stanley really looked. Much older than he should have.

"Alright, I'll go take care of the kids. You can." The sentence ended abruptly there, Stan turning to head up to the kids' room rather than finish it, as though he didn't care what Ford did.

Ford was beginning to suspect he didn't.


	9. Gratitude and Remorse (Part One)

AN:This one-shot got really long on me, so I decided to break it down into a two-shot. More is on the way, as soon as I finish it.

* * *

After that first night, not another word was spoken about Stan moving out, one way or the other. Ford had been okay with asking Stan to leave when he thought it was just Stan, because he was sure Stan would somehow manage to land on his feet. However, Stan was the guardian of their great-niece and -nephew – and probably doing a reasonably decent job at it too, given how clearly the three of them adored each other – and the idea of forcing him out of the house with two eight year olds in tow was unconscionable. But at the same time, Stan was still the man who had ruined Ford's life twice over, and then stole his name, his house, and his life. And Ford was supposed to what, tell this man he was welcome in Ford's home? Well he wasn't; he was, at best, a tolerated presence for the sake of the children.

So things dragged on, with Stan and the kids showing no signs of leaving or looking for some other place to live, and Ford letting them. They stayed upstairs in the main house and Ford stayed in the basement, only venturing up when he had to, and doing his best to avoid Stanley when he did, while everyone avoided Ford. It was a tenuous situation, and one that couldn't go on indefinitely, but Stan and Ford both seemed bound and determined to see how long they could make it last for.

* * *

There was a stranger in Ford's kitchen making snacks: a gawky girl with vibrant red hair up in high pigtails and slightly protruding lips that spoke of heavy orthodontia. Well, not a total stranger considering her familiarity with the kitchen; probably she was one of Dipper and Mabel's friends, most likely the previously mentioned Wendy given her complete lack of reaction to Ford. And he did mean _complete_ lack. Ford had come up to the kitchen to give himself a brief respite from sorting through the broken remains of the portal to see what might be salvaged, and to get himself something to eat. Upon discovering the stranger already in there, Ford had stood in the doorway for a minute in confusion, greeted her, and then spent the past five minutes moving around the kitchen making himself a sandwich, and she had yet to give any indication that she was aware she wasn't alone in the room. The alternative, Ford supposed, was that she was angry at Stan for whatever reason, and had confused Ford for him.

"Hey Wendy, are the…" Ford turned to see Dipper standing in the doorway to the living room, and the boy's words stuttered to a halt when their eyes briefly met. Dipper swallowed, then continued "are the snacks ready yet?"

"Hello Dipper," Ford said, doing his best to sound friendly.

"Hi, Great Uncle Ford," Dipper replied, his gaze skittering past Ford as though he knew the polite thing to do was to look at Ford when talking to him, but he couldn't quite make himself do it. "Wendy?"

"The popcorn is alllmoosst" – the microwave dinged – "done. I just need to put it in a bowl and then movie night is good to go. Why don't you grab the nachos and the sodas off the table and I'll be out there in a second," Wendy said.

Dipper agreed, darted in, grabbed the food, and darted back out again as quickly as he could.

Ford happened to be standing next to the cabinet where the large bowls were held, so he reached up and grabbed one and handed it to Wendy. She didn't snatch it out of his hand, like he was half-expecting her to, but neither did she thank him or in any way show that she realized that the bowl had been given to her by a person and not a helpful piece of furniture. But just when Ford thought she was going to leave the room without ever having acknowledged his presence, she turned around and glared at him.

"Look dude, I don't know what your deal is, if Stan really did something horrible to you or if he saved you and you're just being a butt and refusing to thank him, or whatever. But Dipper and Mabel are my friends and they're sad and scared and hurt because of you, so you need to get your act together or I'm going to come down to your secret basement and kick your butt."

Likely she meant to come off as intimidating, but Ford had seen far too many horrible things to be frightened by a child. Instead he found her self-righteous fury to be very humbling. "Things between my brother and I aren't quite as simple to sort out as all that. But I am, I mean I will try to get there. And I certainly never meant to hurt Dipper or Mabel; thank you for looking out for them."

Wendy's glare went down a number of degrees in intensity, dropping from fury to exasperation. "I know you didn't _mean_ to hurt them; if I thought you had done it on purpose, I'd already be kicking your butt right now. Just, figure it out, you know?"

She didn't wait for a reply, exiting to the living room and calling out to the other kids gleefully, as if the whole previous interlude had never happened.

* * *

Ford approached the house, feeling a bit the worse for wear, but satisfied. Celestabellebethabelle's friends had not taken it well when they saw Ford standing over their unconscious friend with her mane in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other. But Ford had gotten the hair in the end, and learned a valuable lesson: in addition to being frustrating, unicorns were also a bunch of lying jerks.

He slowed as he reached the house and saw Dipper sitting on the steps to the porch, looking morose. Dipper looked up when he saw Ford approaching, but, for the first time since that very first evening, he didn't immediately leave. Ford decided that the barrier he had been planning on making – which was really just a precaution at this point, since he had yet to see any sign of Bill since returning to his home dimension – could wait a bit longer.

Ford sat down on the step next to Dipper, but being careful to leave as much space between the two of them as he could manage; he didn't want to make Dipper feel uncomfortable enough that he did decide to leave after all. "Thinking big thoughts?" Ford asked, after sitting in silence for a minute failed to get any kind of reaction from Dipper, or to inspire Ford with anything particularly clever or insightful to say.

"I guess," Dipper replied succinctly, a far cry from the clever boy brimming with questions that Ford had briefly met before he had ruined everything.

Dipper's fingers drummed a nervous tattoo against the book in his lap, and Ford smiled a little when he recognized what the boy was holding. The distinctive golden handprint was covered by a folded up piece of paper sitting on top of the book, but the familiar red leather and metal fastenings were unmistakable. "Which one of my journals is that?"

"It's mine. I mean, it's the third one." Tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap. "Did you want it back?"

Truthfully, Ford had been meaning to ask for his journals back from the kids. He just hadn't gotten around to it yet because it had seemed more convenient to use the photocopies that Stan had made and left down in Ford's lab, rather than try to hunt down two children who wanted nothing to do with him and seemed upset by his very presence and demand his things back. True, the copies hadn't preserved anything that Ford had written in invisible ink, but from what little he had seen of those notes in his first journal, he had come to two conclusions: firstly, that the scientific soundness of anything he had written after he got to that point was dubious at best, and second, he really did not want to revisit the frame of mind he had been in at that time. Still, he had been meaning to ask for them back, if for no other reason than the comforting familiarity of holding the books in his hands. And here was Dipper, with Ford's journal in his possession at this very moment and offering to give it back to Ford, and yet…

And yet, Dipper had identified this particular journal by calling it "his," and he sounded so resigned when he had offered to return it. "You know, I haven't been in this dimension in a long time, but I think I remember a saying from my youth that would apply to this situation. It went, if I recall, 'finders keepers, losers weepers.'"

Dipper looked up at him, surprised and with an amused half-smile, only for the expression to wipe of his face a moment later, as Dipper abruptly looked away again. Ah, well, it was a start.

"What else do you have there?" Ford asked, reaching toward the paper sitting on top of the journal without thinking.

Dipper jerked away, partially rotating his body so that his upper half blocked Ford's access to the items in his lap. The action seemed to be an unconscious one on Dipper's part, as a second later he turned back to his former position, blushing slightly.

"That was extremely rude of me," Ford said, before Dipper could try and offer any apologies for his behavior. "Would you mind if I had a look at your paper?" Dipper didn't answer right away, and continued to look anxious, so after a minute Ford added, "It's alright if you don't want to show me; I won't be upset." In fact, he would be upset, but not at Dipper.

"I…" Dipper chewed on his lip. "I have to remind Mabel sometimes: you look with your eyes, not your hands."

"Of course. I actually used to say the very same thing to my own twin when I was your age," Ford said with a smile. He saw a lot of himself in Dipper, or at least he was fairly certain he did from what he had observed that first evening and during their very brief and rare encounters since, and he thought there was a lot he could teach the boy, provided he found a way to mend their relationship.

"I know," Dipper said. "Grunkle Stan told us." Right, his 'Sixer and Lee' stories. What an odd, and oddly discomfiting, thought: that Dipper could learn from Ford without needing Ford to be there to teach him.

"Well then," Ford said, pointedly lacing his hands together and placing them in his lap, "may I see what it is you have there?"

"Okay," Dipper said. He picked up the paper and, very carefully and gently, unfolded it. It was clear that he had had it for a long time, and likely carried it around with him a lot, as the edges had started to get worn and tattered, and the ink had begun to fade away as well. That was probably why Ford's eye was immediately drawn not to the large and somewhat ornate title on the page, but to a spot roughly in the center where someone, probably Dipper, had scratched out the 'ford' in 'Stanford' so violently it had ripped a small whole in the page and written above it 'ley.'

Oh. That was… "I hadn't realized that Stan adopted you as his son. And your sister as his daughter I assume." He'd known that Stan was their guardian, of course, but he hadn't known that Stan had gone as far as to adopt the children. It was getting harder and harder to think of his brother as selfish.

Dipper shook his head. "No, Grunkle Stan is still our great uncle. He adopted us so he could make sure he was going to be the one taking care of us, but he says our real dad was a good person who loved us a lot, and you don't replace family." Dipper paused and chewed on his lip some more. Ford waited, thinking that perhaps the boy needed a minute to get his thoughts in order, and, after a few moments, Dipper continued. "But Grunkle Stan took us instead of letting Aunt Karen do it like it was originally going to be, because Aunt Karen is the worst and she wouldn't have taken good care of us. And Soos's dad left him with Abuelita when Soos was really little and he never visits or calls or anything. So I was thinking that maybe it's okay to replace family sometimes, if they don't treat you like family."

Ford's throat closed up and he had to swallow a few times before he could speak again. "Big thoughts indeed. Is… Do you think that I warrant replacing?"

Dipper shrugged one shoulder, which perhaps wasn't the response Ford had hoped for, but it was better than the unequivocal yes he had feared. "Grunkle Stan worked really hard for a really long time to save you, and you never even thanked him for it, and you were going to kick him out. I don't understand why you would do something like that."

Somehow Ford didn't think 'I was only going to kick him out because at the time I didn't realize he was your permanent guardian and you and you're sister were living here too' would go over all that well. Which left the question of how to explain things in a way that an eight year old, albeit a very intelligent one, would be able to grasp. "The first thing you should know is that Stan and I have reached an understanding," – granted, it was an unspoken understanding, full of avoidance and anger and glares, but it was an understanding – "and no one is getting kicked out. As to why… I bet your sister Mabel has a knack for making big messes."

"Yeah. She gets stuff all over the place when she's crafting," Dipper said with a smile of fond amusement that Ford found familiar in a way he couldn't place.

"And does she sometimes make a mess of your things too while she's at it?"

"Sometimes," Dipper conceded with a shrug.

"And has she ever made such a big mess of your things that you wanted to make her leave so you could get everything back in order again?"

Dipper scrunched his nose and frowned. "Maybe, I guess. But even if she did, I wouldn't want to make her leave forever. Just until I could get it all cleaned up."

"Unfortunately Stanley's messes aren't that easy to clean up. This house was one I designed and had built to serve as my lab while I studied the anomalies here in Gravity Falls, and Stan turned it into a tourist trap that mocks those very same anomalies. And he stole my name, which is a very serious… thing to do," Ford said, skirting around the word 'crime.'

"But he only did all of that to save you," Dipper protested.

"I'm afraid it's not as simple as all that; one of the consequences of growing up is that things tend to become more complicated," Ford told him. Dipper scowled, which Ford could sympathize with. When he had been Dipper's age, he hated the explanation 'you'll understand it when you're older.' Of course, he did understand why adults had felt the need use that answer so frequently, now that he was older. Still, that was hardly going to make Dipper feel better now, so Ford cast about for another, safer topic.

"Did you know I made all those journals myself? I mean, obviously I wrote them, but I also made the physical journals."

Dipper blinked in surprise at the abrupt shift in subject a few times, then glanced down at the book in his lap with interest. "Really? That's pretty cool."

"Thank you. I was trying to make something a bit sturdier than the average book one might buy at the store. Though not sturdy enough, it appears," Ford said, frowning at the visible tears in the cover.

"The pages inside are still good. Well, there are some that got ripped out, but other than that."

"Ah, well those missing pages are not exactly related to the quality of the journals construction." Ford having ripped them out himself when at one of his lower points. "But yes, the paper inside is of a special, high-quality make. It's still paper, so there are of course limits to how durable it can be, but it's resistant to tears, weather, and the ink fading or running. And, incidentally, I actually have some more of that very same paper left down in my study."

"Can I have a piece of it?" Dipper asked, the words practically bursting out of him.

"Of course; you can have all of it, if you like," Ford said. In fact, he had been leading up to offering to create Dipper a journal of his own, but Dipper's request for a single piece had him intrigued. "Was there something in specific you wanted it for?"

"My certificate is kind of torn up and stuff from me carrying it around, so I thought I could ask Grunkle Stan to make me a new copy on your special paper," Dipper said.

Oh. Ford hadn't thought… But of course that's what Dipper wanted the paper for. Of course. "You know, I think I could help you out with that."

Dipper looked at him skeptically. "But Grunkle Stan keeps the original copies in his safe."

"You might not be aware of this, but your Great Uncle Ford is actually a wanted man across a number of different dimensions; I think I can handle getting into a basic safe. Besides, I can probably guess Stanley's combination: thirteen, forty-four… well, I'm sure it will only take me two or three tries."

In fact, it would up taking him four tries, but Ford did manage to get into the safe and retrieve Dipper's adoption certificate. He was thrown for a minute by the fact that the certificate said 'Mason Pines' on it, before realizing that Dipper could hardly be the boy's legal name. Making a copy of it was a slightly more fraught experience, more due to Ford's worries about what might happen than anything that actually did – honestly, Stan had no business sticking this particular copier in his study like it was common office appliance.

When the, mercifully not alive, copy came out, Ford grabbed it quickly before Dipper could, earning him a slightly hurt look from the boy. "Just one quick adjustment," Ford told him. He pulled a pen out of his pocket and quickly crossed out the name 'Stanford' and replaced it with 'Stanley.' "Here you are."

Dipper took the paper from him. As he inspected the change Ford had made, Ford could almost swear he saw the boy going a bit misty-eyed. "Thanks, Great Uncle Ford," Dipper said. For a second, Ford almost, almost thought Dipper was going to hug him, but after throwing a smile Ford's way, he scampered off instead. It was progress, at least.

(It occurred to Ford much later that, legally, it was his name on the children's adoption certificates, which meant, legally, he could kick Stan out of his house and keep the kids himself. Legally, he had every right to take the children away from Stan.

Even just thinking it left Ford fighting the urge to throw up.)

* * *

Ford stared resolutely at the campfire, trying to banish the tricklings of fear and the near certainty that he was being watched from the back of his mind. It wasn't a remotely rational feeling; he hadn't seen any shadows moving beyond the ring of firelight or heard any strange sounds or even smelt the odor of any of Gravity Falls' more pungent anomalies. It was only his paranoia-fueled imagination making him think there was any danger here. Well, any physical danger.

The morning of the day before yesterday Ford had finally left on his extremely belated trip to the caves where he'd first discovered the information on Bill. He didn't have particularly high hopes of there being anything there that he hadn't already discovered elsewhere in his travels through the multiverse, but it was worth a look. And certainly it was worth destroying the inscriptions on summoning Bill. Unfortunately, while he had accurately recalled that it was roughly a three day hike to reach the caves, he hadn't thought to take into account that his memories of how to get there had become somewhat eroded over the intervening years. So despite his steady and relatively quick pace and taking full advantage of the long hours of summer daylight, by the time he had reached his destination today it had been too late to do anything but settle in for the night. If he would have known how disturbing he was going to find sleeping right outside the caves, he would have backtracked a bit before setting up camp, but there was nothing to be done about that now either.

Ford pulled his bag over, thinking that he might be able to distract himself by flipping through one of his journals. He had brought all three with him – well, technically he had brought the first one and his copies of the other two, the originals still being with Dipper and Mabel – just in case. He started to reach for the first one as it was the only one of them to not have any reference to Bill, but then decided on the third one instead; he rather liked the idea of reading about some of his and Fiddleford's adventures. (He was really going to have to put his foot down and make someone tell him what had happened to Fiddleford sometime soon.) But the packet of papers that Ford closed his hand around couldn't possibly be either of his copies of the journals, being both noticeably thinner and held together by a staple rather than the simple binding that Ford had used. Intrigued, Ford pulled the packet out and set it on his lap, where he stared at it in total bafflement for several long seconds.

 _The Totally Epic Saga of Sixer and Lee, the Best Twins in the World Except for Maybe Dipper and Mabel, Actually It's Probably a Tie, Part Four: The Long-Awaited Reunion Which Goes Really Great Except Then It Doesn't and Everyone Is Super Sad Until the Really Awesome Reconciliation_ , by Soos Ramirez.

This must be the fanfiction thing that Soos mentioned, snuck into Ford's bag for some unknown reason, he finally decided. He stared at the front page a little longer before taking out his pen and beginning liberally cross out words. When he was done, the new title read: _The Saga of Sixer and Lee, Part Four: Reunion and Reconciliation_. A bit on the nose and not particularly eloquent, but it was decent enough. That taken care of, Ford flipped the page and began reading. If nothing else, it would probably serve as a fairly thorough distraction.

He found himself making frequent use of his pen throughout the story, both to fix the numerous grammar mistakes and to point out some of the issues with the story structure as well: the occasional abrupt scene transition, the constant inexplicably shifting point of view, and the weak grasp the story had on the Sixer character, especially in comparison to the others, to start. But in spite of that, there was something to the story, possibly in the phrasing or the descriptions or maybe just in the fact that Ford was intimately familiar with the subject matter, that communicated the emotions it wanted to clear and strong. Like the conclusion: no matter how ridiculous and unrealistic Ford thought it was that Sixer would thank Lee for saving his life and that would, almost instantly it seemed, solve their all problems, in the moment Ford could _feel_ it and wanted it to be true more than anything. It was a little jarring, in a way, to reach the end of the story and find himself back in reality.

Ford flipped back through the pages again and found himself feeling just a bit guilty at just how many corrections he had made. Soos might be the oldest of the children that had attached themselves to Stan, but he was still a child – or, at least, Ford thought he was a child based on his behavior. He was relatively young, at any rate. And children should be encouraged in their interests. Ford couldn't take back the corrections he had made, and even if he could he wouldn't, because how else would the boy learn, but he could and did leave a little note at the end, pointing out a few of his favorite parts and thanking Soos for sharing the story with him.

Three days later, after Ford had returned home with nothing to show for his journey except a lingering slightly smoky smell from burning all the paintings off the cave walls with his ray gun, he placed the edited story behind the counter in the gift shop where he thought Soos was most likely to find it, and then more or less forgot about it.

At least, until another three days later, when Ford was up in the main house to take a shower – he knew he should have had one installed down in the basement when the house was being built – and ended up being the victim of what he could only describe as a walk-by hugging. He'd been headed down the hallway toward the bathroom when he saw Soos coming down the same hallway in the opposite direction. Ford gave a brief nod in greeting, which Soos returned, and then went back to considering more important matters, like what he was going to do if that really had been a crack in the glass in the Rift's containment dome and what he could possibly get Dipper and Mabel for their upcoming birthday to make up for eight missed ones. So he was taken completely unawares when, as Soos passed Ford, Soos turned, grabbed Ford around the middle and gave a quick squeeze, then let go and continued on his way as though it had never happened. It was bizarre, but then Soos himself was rather bizarre as far as Ford could tell, so he decided not to worry about it.

When Ford had finished showering, he opened the bathroom door to be confronted with a pile of papers sitting on the ground directly in front of him. Picking them up and shuffling through revealed them to be _The Saga of Sixer and Lee_ , parts one through three, plus a new draft of part four. He looked around, but there was no immediate sign of Soos hanging about, and the placement seemed too deliberate for them to have been dropped on accident. So Ford shrugged, tucked the papers under one arm, and took them back down to the basement with him. You never know when you might be in need of a distraction.

* * *

"Hi Great Uncle Ford!"

Ford stopped dead in his tracks. No one greeted him in that chipper and excited of a tone. Dipper had gotten close to that level twice since he'd started talking to Ford again, once when Ford had been teaching him how to play Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons, which the boy was proving to be quite adept at, and another time when Dipper was telling Ford that since Ford had been sucked into the portal, they had made nine more movies and four spin-off TV series of one of Ford's favorite shows when he was a kid: _Wagon Train to the Stars_. But he still greeted Ford hesitantly, as though half-expecting Ford to suddenly turn into a monster of some kind. Wendy's greetings, when she deigned to greet Ford at all, were limited to a nod or a laconic "'Sup?" and Soos still wasn't actually talking to Ford, presumably as a show of loyalty to Stan, despite the numerous story drafts that kept conveniently finding themselves in Ford's path. As for Stan… well, the two of them were managing civility when they had to talk, but they were still avoiding doing so whenever possible.

"Yeah, I'm talking to you," Mabel continued brightly. "Get in here a minute."

A very small part of Ford wanted to brush off her summons, or at least request that she wait for the five minutes it would take to safely sequester the rift in his study. But Ford squashed that urge down. Honestly, now that the Rift's containment dome had been slathered in the alien adhesive, it could be used as a baseball without any real danger of the Rift being opened. Putting it away would only be for Ford's own peace of mind, and if his niece wanted to see him, then that was more important.

"Hello," he said, coming into the kitchen to sit down at the table, where it appeared that a small explosion of arts and craft supplies had gone off. At the epicenter of the explosion was Mabel, who currently had a pair of knitted red ribbons in one hand, and a hot glue gun in the other, which she was using to affix the ribbons to a many-pointed cardboard star.

"How did your mission go today?" she asked him, while making slight adjustments to the positioning of the ribbons.

"My mission?" Ford echoed. He hadn't told anyone what he had been planning on doing today. He had considered telling Dipper and inviting the boy along, but he thought it unlikely that Dipper would agree to go without seeking permission from Stan first, and there was no chance that Stan would agree to it, either out of spite or because he arbitrarily decided it was too dangerous. Though, on second thought Ford had to admit that worries about the dangers Crash Site Omega might pose for an eight year old might not be entirely unfounded, and it would probably be prudent to put off bringing the children along on such adventures until they were a bit older.

"Yeah, you left the house this morning looking all serious like this," Mabel contorted her features in a way that was likely supposed to appear serious, but mainly came off comical, "so I thought you must've been going on a mission."

"That's very astute of you. Yes, I was going on a mission this morning, one to help contain the damage Stan caused when he started up the portal again."

Mabel's expression briefly flashed a moue of displeasure, but she shook it off and smiled at him again. "And…? How'd it go?"

"Well. I haven't completely solved the problem, but I was able to apply a stop-gap measure to buy more time, which was my primary purpose in going out today."

"Good job!" Mabel said, setting aside what she was working on to sort through the pile of stickers to her right. Eventually she found what she was looking for and slapped a sticker on his lapel: a garish yellow-green cat with purple stripes, an uncomfortably large grin, and a caption that read, 'Purrrrrfect!' "Plus if you scratch it, it smells like peaches," Mabel informed him. With a sense of morbid curiosity, Ford scratched the sticker and held it up to his nose; it did indeed smell like peaches.

"Thank you," Ford said. There was a long moment of silence following that, which seemed awkward to Ford, though Mabel, who was busy adding a pin clasp to what Ford now assumed was the back of her cardboard star, didn't seem to notice. "And what have you been working on today?" Ford asked when the silence got to be too much.

"I'm making an award," Mabel told him.

"What kind of award?"

"An award for you, silly. That's why I called you over here."

Ford felt a warn sensation in his chest. He had been trying to do right by the children ever since he'd messed up big time that first evening, and it was nice to know that he was making, apparently significant, progress. He reached out for the award, then stopped himself, remembering that first real conversation he had had with Dipper. "May I see it?"

Mabel frown thoughtfully and gave a few pokes, first gently, then firmer, to the ribbons and the pin clasp. Satisfied, she nodded and held it up for Ford, "Here you go; try it on."

One look at the front made it immediately apparent what the roll of gold foil circular stickers that Mabel had was for. She had covered the front of her cardboard star with a series of overlapping rings until the entire thing was gold in appearance. Then she had taken a combination of black pen and silver glitter glue and written 'NOT AS MUCH OF A JERK AS YOU COULD HAVE BEEN.' The whole thing was finished off by a sticker of an apple that was both crying and giving a thumbs up.

"Thank you, Mabel. It's very… direct," Ford said uncertainly, taking the creation and pining it on his jacket beneath the cat sticker.

"Sure is!" Mabel said.

"I don't want to sound ungrateful, but do you think there's any way I might be able to graduate up to something a little better, like 'much less of a jerk than you could have been,' or even 'not a jerk?'"

"Look, if it were entirely up to me, you'd already be at 'a pretty okay guy.' Cause you helped Dipper out with his certificate and you do all that nerdy stuff with him, and you helped Soos with his fanfiction, and you're going to take me to meet a unicorn."

"I am?" Ford said. That was news to him.

"C'mon Great Uncle Ford, did you think I wouldn't recognize the unicorn hair around the outside of the shack. I'm obsessed with unicorns! You have to take me to meet one!"

"I'm not sure that's such a great idea," Ford said hesitantly – unicorns were jerks that Mabel didn't need to be exposed to, not to mention that Ford wasn't exactly in their good books – and Mabel's face fell. She looked absolutely devastated. "I'll see what I can arrange."

Mabel screamed with delight. "I can't wait to tell Candy and Grenda and Wendy and Pacifica that we get to meet a unicorn!"

"Maybe we shouldn't tell your friends about this," Ford started and Mabel's face fell again. "At least, not until I get a chance to clear it with the unicorns first." Mabel let out another cry of glee, and in spite of the thought of the onerous task Ford had just signed himself up for, he couldn't help but smile at her. "So what do you say; you think that'll move me up a few levels?"

"It's definitely helping," Mabel said. "But if you really want to get a better award, then what you have to do is tell Grunkle Stan thank you for saving you and the two of you need to hug it out."

Ford supposed he shouldn't be surprised by that response, but it was… disappointing, to be reminded that he was the outsider here. "It's not as simple as all that," he told her.

"Course it is," Mabel insisted. "Hugs fix everything."

Ford sighed. He hated to spoil her innocence, even a little bit, but the truth was hugs did not fix everything, certainly not what was between him and Stan. "How much do you know about why the two of us are fighting?"

"Dipper says that you said that you're mad at Grunkle Stan because he borrowed your name and because he changed your house all around. But really the two of you were already fighting before that because Grunkle Stan said in the story about how Sixer fell into the portal that the two of you were fighting and not paying attention and that's how it happened. And you were fighting then because Grunkle Stan was mad that you didn't want to see him even though you hadn't seen him in ten years because your poophead dad kicked him out of the house when you were in high school. And that happened because Grunkle Stan accidentally broke your cool science fair project and was too scared to tell you, so it was his fault that you didn't get into your super cool nerd school. And I think that's it," Mabel said, tapping on the side of her chin thoughtfully.

Ford found himself taken aback. Most of what Mabel had said wasn't that strange for her to know, when Ford thought about it, but her abbreviated version of the events of the science fair had caught him by surprise. Not that Stan had claimed that his part in the affair was an accident – Ford vaguely recalled him saying as much on the night that it happened – but that he still laid the blame for it on himself. Ford would have assumed Stan would try to lie and write it off as an accident so as to minimize his culpability in the matter and to make himself look better, but if he was going to accept fault regardless, then why lie about it? Unless he wasn't lying at all, and what happened that night hadn't been a deliberate, planned act of betrayal, but just a stupid kid making a stupid mistake.

Not that any of that really mattered, because Ford was an adult and he was supposed to be past what happened over 35 years ago. No, what he was angry about now was more immediate and pressing concerns, like identity theft and Stan potentially bringing about the apocalypse. "I suppose that is the gist of it. But all of that can't be fixed with just a thank you and a hug, especially since I have no intention of thanking Stanley for what he did. I know this might be hard to understand, because from what you've seen, he was just trying to save me, and he succeeded in that. But what he did also could have brought about the end of the universe" – and still might, though no need to worry her about that right now – "which means it was wrong for him to do. And you shouldn't thank someone for doing the wrong thing," Ford informed her gently.

Mabel grinned at him. "Grunkle Ford I think being stuck on the other side of the portal has made your brain all mushy," she said, standing in her chair and reaching over to knock him on the head a few times to underscore her point.

"I beg your pardon?"

"It's like you said, Grunkle Stan was just trying to save you. And the most important thing isn't what you do or even whether or not you succeed. The most important thing is that you try your best."


	10. Gratitude and Remorse (Part Two)

Ford made his way upstairs from the basement and came to stand in the doorway of the living room, where Stan was watching some inane show or other on TV. Ford had had a lot of time to think over the past couple of days – while creating a device capable of sealing the Rift had taken a stroke of brilliance and a lot of intensive work, the actual act of sealing it, after removing it from the alien adhesive-encased containment dome, which had been a task in and of itself, had been as mindless as it was time consuming. He had appreciated the time, though, because it gave Ford the opportunity to finally figure out what he wanted to say to his brother. Well, no, that wasn't quite true; Ford knew what he wanted to _communicate_ , but the exact words to use to do so seemed to be escaping him at the moment. He knew he really shouldn't be putting this off any longer, but maybe just one more day to get his thoughts in order…

"Ford, just say whatever it is you want to say. You standing there watching me is starting to get a little creepy." Ford startled, suddenly realizing that Stan had turned the TV off and was staring at him expectantly. "Is this about the kids? Because you absolutely do not have my permission to do anything dangerous with them, but if you're trying to bond or whatever, that's fine. The kids are happier when they like you, and things are better for everyone when they're happy."

"No, it's not about the children," Ford said, taking a few steps and entering the room more fully. "It's… Stanley, I can't thank you for pulling me out of the portal." Well, off to a great start there, genius. There's no way Stan could possibly take that wrong.

Predictably, Stan's expression darkened. "Can't say I was getting my hopes up, but nice of you to let me know not to bother," Stan said, his voice dripping with sarcasm and something even more bitter.

"That's not what I meant," Ford said. "That is, it is what I meant, but there's a greater context to it that I need you to understand." Stan didn't look impressed by that explanation, but he at least seemed willing to let Ford continue. "I can't thank you because, no matter what your reasons were for what you did, the fact is that portal never should have been opened again, because doing so ran the risk of destroying our universe. And that is not a hyperbole, there was a very real possibility of opening that portal resulting in the destruction of the universe; in a way, that's what it was designed to do."

"You designed a machine to destroy the universe," Stan said flatly.

"No. Well, yes. Well, it wasn't exactly… It was a complicated situation," Ford prevaricated. Even now that the danger had passed for this universe, Ford didn't feel comfortable admitting to how Bill had tricked him.

"So un-complicate it," Stan said.

"Look, that part's not what's important. What's important is that, regardless of your intentions, risking the entire universe just to save one person is not the right thing to do, if for no other reason than if you destroy the universe, then any efforts to save that person become moot. But," Ford said loudly, overriding the protest that he was sure Stan had been about to give, "just because intentions won't change the end results, that doesn't mean they don't matter. I can't thank you for what you did, because I think it was wrong, but I _can_ thank you for wanting to save me and for never giving up on me, even after over twenty-five years. So, thank you, Stanley."

There, that was the best Ford could do, his peace offering. It wasn't going to solve everything, he knew, because it wasn't that simple, but it was a start. That's what they needed right now, and if Stan was too proud to reach out (or too wary because every time he'd done so in the past he'd gotten burned), then Ford would.

It was a good start, it seemed, from the way years of tension – tension that Ford hadn't even noticed until now and when he had stopped being able to read his brother effortlessly? – bled off Stan in response. "You're welcome. And hey, I'm not sorry for saving you, even if you think it was wrong, but I'm sorry if I screwed up how I went about it."

Ford felt a wave of emotion wash over him at that, so strong he had to close his eyes for a second.

"Ford?"

"I needed to hear that." Though even Ford hadn't realized how much he needed to until Stan had said it. Because Stan was always, always spinning things, even back when they had been kids. It was always 'don't worry about it' or 'it's not that bad' or 'look at the bright side' or 'maybe there's a silver lining to me wrecking your chances to getting into your dream school and ruining your life.' Wait, stop, he was an adult; he was past that. Truthfully, it was something he mostly liked about his brother, something he even needed sometimes, because when things started going very bad, Ford had a tendency to catastrophize and make them worse.

(Ford could imagine an alternate universe, one where Stan had realized that treasure hunting wasn't a viable life plan, and Ford hadn't gotten into West Coast Tech for a different reason. In that universe, Ford doesn't wind up at Backupsmore, because when he's spiraling downward,sure he would never be able to get into any college or ever recover from this rejection, Stan is right there saying, 'Are you kidding me? My brother's a genius. There's hundreds, no thousands, millions of schools out there dying to get you to go there.' And then Ford tells them there aren't even a million colleges in the world period, but he's smiling while he says it and thinking 'maybe.' And another one where Ford had called Stan up to Gravity Falls before everything went horribly wrong to reconnect because Ford was an adult and he was past childish grudges and hadn't seen his brother in years. In that universe, Ford never descends down to the depths of paranoia and despair because when the truth comes out and all Ford can think is how his Muse was a monster who betrayed him, Stan is right there saying, 'Okay, so what do we need to do to stop him? I mean, he's a triangle that dresses up like he thinks he's Mr. Monopoly. I'm pretty sure we can take him.' And Ford doesn't smile because he can't right then, but he does think, 'maybe.' And another… well, he has had a lot of time to think these past couple of days.)

So maybe sometimes Stan's relentless optimism, even to the point of being unrealistic, was good for Ford. But other times, Ford just wanted to hear his brother say, 'I'm sorry. I messed up, and you got hurt, and I'm sorry.' "I _really_ needed to hear that," Ford repeated.

"I told you I was sorry already, didn't I?" Stan said, his tone sounding like it wanted to be light and joking but wasn't quite able to manage it.

"No, you never did, for any of it," Ford told him, but there was no venom in it. How could there be when Stan looked so shocked by the idea?

"Well I am; I'm sorry for all of it. I'm sorry I broke your nerd project and I'm sorry I didn't tell you so you could fix it and I'm sorry I messed up your chances of getting into that school and ruined your life. I'm sorry I wasn't here for you when things got all screwy up here and you needed help and I'm sorry that I didn't listen to what you were trying to tell me when I did get here. I'm sorry for threatening to burn your journal and starting that fight and for pushing you into the portal. I'm sorry that it took me over twenty-five years to save you. I'm sorry that I took your name, your house, your life. And I'm sorry for all the things you missed: I'm sorry you missed saying good-bye to Ma and Pa and Shermie, and you missed those two kids being born, and –"

"That's enough," Ford said, his eye screwed shut tight against the stinging in them. It had been freeing at first, to finally get the apologies he had been owed, but the worn out and broken down litany had just kept going and going until it was too much. How had Stan been carrying this much guilt around; why hadn't Ford noticed? He took a deep breath in, then let it out and opened his eyes again. "It's okay, Stanley. I forgive you."

Stan laughed, harsh and full of self-hatred. "It's funny, you know. I apologized to you so many times in my head, I guess I forgot I never did it out loud. I really am a screw-up, huh?"

"You're not a screw-up. I won't deny that you have screwed up in the past, because you have, but so have I and so has everyone else in the world. That doesn't mean it's all you are." One of Ford's screw ups had been forgetting that fact, and letting his own hurt and betrayal and their dad's opinions color his memories of Stan into a caricature of who his brother really was. "You think those kids would look up to you as much as they do if you were a screw up?"

"Eh, they're kids, what do they know?" Stan said, but the mention of the family Stan had made for himself did bring Stan's mood up somewhat, as Ford had hoped it might.

"They know a lot more than I do, at least when it comes to family," Ford admitted. "They get that from you."

"Yeah, well, they're smart kids," Stan said, apparently completely unconcerned by the fact that he'd just contradicted his previous statement.

"They are," Ford agreed, smiling slightly. Then the expression dropped and he sighed a little. He wasn't sure how Stan was going to take what he had to say next, but Ford didn't think he'd be particularly pleased by it. "There's something else. I've decided that you and the kids are welcome to stay in my house as long as you like, and you can keep the Mystery Shack up and running as well."

"Don't strain yourself with excitement," Stan remarked, half amusement and half annoyance. "Look is this about me taking over your science-y space for the Mystery Shack stuff? 'Cause I've been thinking, what with one thing and the other I've got a decent bit of money saved up, especially now that the mortgage is paid off, so we could probably talk to Manly Dan and get him to give us a good deal on adding a couple of additions to the place."

"Stanley, that's…" Ford interrupted. "It's a nice offer, but when I said you all could stay it was in part because I won't be. It's going to take a few weeks to get my portable wormhole portal gun working again after the damage done to it coming through the old portal, but after that I'm leaving."

"No!"

They both froze, Stan halfway up out of his chair, neither of them having expected Stan's outburst. They stared at each other for a minute, but before either of them could think of anything to say, they heard the pounding of two pairs of feet running down the stairs.

"Grunkle Stan!" "Grunkle Stan!"

"Is it a gremgoblin?" Dipper called.

"Or the IRS?" Mabel added.

The children's shouts were enough to shake Stan out of his shocked state, and he sunk back down into his chair and glared at Ford, who was still regarding Stan with confusion and surprise. That was how the kids found them when they came in the room a moment later.

"Are you two fighting again?" Mabel asked, scrutinizing them both.

"No," Ford said. He hadn't expected Stan to react that strongly to Ford's decision, admittedly, but before that they'd been getting along better than they had in a very, very long time.

"Yes," Stan answered simultaneously, then scowled at Ford. "You know what, you're right: we aren't fighting. Because every time, every single time, I think things are finally going to work out between us, you just want us to get as far away from each other as possible. So fine, leave if that's what you want to do, 'cause I'm done with it."

That wasn't… Ford hadn't…

"Grunkle Ford? Are you leaving on another camping trip?" Dipper asked uncertainly. "Because you said you'd take me next time if you weren't going to do anything dangerous."

"We can all go," Mabel added excitedly. "Family camping trip!"

"I'm afraid this trip would be much too dangerous for you," Ford told them. "And it's not a camping trip either. In a few weeks, I'll be leaving this dimension again and going back to traveling the multiverse."

Mabel punched him.

It didn't physically hurt, of course. Mabel was only a little girl, not even nine years old yet for another week's time, so she lack the sheer muscle power to hurt him, even if she did manage to hit him right in the kidney. But the shock of his little niece, one of the sweetest and brightest people he'd ever met, actually punching him still sent him reeling.

"That's not trying!" she screamed, then she ran over and climbed up on Stan's lap, looping her arms tight around his neck and glaring at Ford.

"Mabel," Stan said, a warning edge to his tone.

"Don't tell me to say sorry, 'cause I won't, 'cause I'm not," she said defiantly. "Plus you said I could hit anyone that was trying to hurt me or my family, and Great Uncle Ford is hurting you."

Stan had no response to that. Neither did Ford, save perhaps that he hadn't intended to hurt Stan this badly, but then Ford was the one who had just been saying that intentions didn't change the facts of a situation. And the fact was he had clearly upset Stanley, even if he hadn't anticipated it and didn't fully understand why. He hadn't expected Stan to be glad about Ford leaving exactly, but prior to ten minutes ago the two of them had been in the middle of a fight that had spanned months, if not decades, and two months ago Ford had threatened Stan's home and livelihood. Surely Stan shouldn't be this disturbed at the thought of Ford leaving.

"I don't understand." Ford turned to see Dipper still standing just inside the doorway, regarding Ford with a confused and plaintive expression. "Why do you want to leave us?"

"That's not it at all," Ford said, dropping down on one knee so he could look Dipper in the eye and place his hands on the boy's shoulders. Dipper flinched at the contact, but he didn't actually try to pull away at least. "I don't want to leave you, not any of you." Ford gave a pointed look at Stan, imploring his brother to understand. "This is about a mistake I made a very long time ago and how I have to take responsibility to fix it."

"So you're going to fix it and come right back, right?" Dipper asked.

"I'm afraid this isn't going to be something quick or easy to fix. And even if I do manage to fix it, I don't have any way of returning to this particular dimension. I won't be coming back," Ford said gently.

"But you have to come back," Dipper protested. "You can fix it and then invent a machine to get back here, because you're really smart and I know you can do it, so you _have_ to come back." Dipper swiped at his eyes furiously and Ford found himself completely at a loss for words.

"What mistake?" Stan asked, startling Ford.

"I'm sorry?"

"Look Ford, you think I don't know a thing or two about trying to make up for a mistake? So I'm asking what you did that was so bad that you have to leave home forever to fix it."

Ford hesitated. He had been reluctant to tell everyone the truth of what he had been dealing with, partially for the sake of their own safety. But he'd made things as safe as they could possibly be at this point, so the only thing holding him back now was his pride. It would be hard to admit to how foolish he'd been, but looking at them now – Dipper struggling to pretend he was dry-eyed, Mabel still glaring at him fiercely, and Stan, who had never once given up on bringing Ford back – Ford thought he owed it to them to tell the truth.

"Back when I was first investigating Gravity Falls, there was a point when I hit a roadblock. I got so desperate I was willing to try anything, no matter how ill-advised. That's when I met him; a mysterious being came to me in my dreams, claiming that he was a muse that chose one brilliant mind a century to inspire and I, blinded by his flattery, believed him. It wasn't until much later, too late almost, that I learned the truth. That my 'muse' had been tricking me and couldn't be trusted. He wasn't a muse at all, but the most powerful and dangerous being I had ever encountered that would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. And what he wanted was nothing more than to destroy our reality."

"Bill Cipher," Dipper said. And in that moment, Ford knew true terror.

"How do you know that name?" Ford demanded.

"I-It was in your journal," Dipper stammered.

"But you haven't seen him, or made any deals with him," Ford said.

"No," Dipper said, shaking his head. Ford grabbed him and pulled him in close, eliciting a squeak of surprise from Dipper. Ford just held Dipper for a moment, reassuring himself that his nephew was here and safe and Bill hadn't gotten to him.

"And you Mabel?"

"I haven't seen him," she said, gripping Stan tighter, probably in response to Ford's fear. Stan was rubbing a comforting hand up and down her back in response, but the look on his face was not one that Ford liked.

"Stanley?"

"I, uh, may have seen him a couple of times," Stan admitted, "but not for a really long time. He showed up after you first got sucked through the portal and tried to make a deal with me to bring you back. But he reminded me of, well me, and I didn't trust him, especially not with how paranoid you'd been acting when I got here. When I wouldn't deal, I guess he gave up and left."

"Say rather he turned his attention elsewhere," Ford corrected. "Bill may be powerful, but the multiverse is infinitely vast and he can't turn his attention everywhere at once. If he thought he wasn't making any progress in invading this dimension, it's not surprising that he might decide to look elsewhere. But Bill is relentless, and he won't stop until he finds a new dimension he can take over and destroy in his own image.

"All of you should be safe from him now, though. I've shielded the house against his influence, and furthermore there shouldn't be any reason for him to turn his attention back to his dimension again. I've finished completely dismantling the portal and fixed the damage it caused in the walls of this dimension, and I've destroyed all the references on how to summon Bill that I can find. Now all that's left to do is for me to go back out there and find a way to get rid of Bill once and for all."

"And why's that gotta be you that does it?" Stan asked with narrowed eyes.

"Weren't you listening? It's my fault that Bill nearly destroyed this dimension; it's because I blindly trusted him that the portal was even built in the first place. Now I have to take Bill out, and make up for that mistake."

"No, you needed to make up for your mistake building the portal – and I turned on the portal too, same as you, so it's probably my fault too some – by keeping Bill from destroying our dimension, which it sounds like you already did," Stan said. "But I don't see as how taking Bill out is your responsibility; it's not your fault this guy is evil or anything."

"But it is my responsibility," Ford said, momentarily reeling for the surety he had felt not twenty minutes ago. "While I was traveling the multiverse, one of the dimensions I found myself in was Dimension 52, where I met an oracle, Jheselbraum the Unswerving. She told me a lot about Bill, but most importantly that I had the face of the one who would destroy Bill."

Stan scoffed. "I don't want to say this broad was scamming you into trying to get you to do the dirty work of taking Bill out, but she was definitely scamming you into trying to get you to do the dirty work of taking Bill out."

Ford shook his head. "I understand why you might think that, but you weren't there. I'm the one who's met Jheselbraum and I can assure you she is a true oracle; I trust her."

Stan opened his mouth to say something, then appeared to reconsider. "Okay, let's say she is the real deal. How many people do you think there are in all these different dimensions with your face?"

Ford blinked a few times in surprise, the idea having honestly never occurred to him before. "There's two right in this room," Mabel added helpfully.

"I don't think your Grunkle Stan is going to be the one to take out a monster that's terrorizing all of existence, sweetie," Stan told her.

"But she makes an excellent point. Across the infinitely large multiverse the number of people with the same face as I have is theoretically infinitely many." Other Stanford Pines and Stanley Pines for a start, plus relatives of theirs whose faces might be similar enough to be considered the same, and even complete strangers that might coincidentally look identical to Ford. If you cast your net wide enough, the possibilities literally become endless.

"There, see, let one of those other guys worry about Bill," Stan said.

It was tempting, so tempting. To leave Bill and all of that behind and concentrate on the here and now and his family. Well, Stan's family. "I can't. I don't even know how many of those others would be willing or able to take Bill out," – Ford didn't even know if he himself was able, but he was willing, so he had to try, didn't he? – "and of those that are, I can't expect them to leave their lives behind when I don't even know what kind of lives I'm expecting them to leave. It's better that I go, because you all have your family; you don't need me."

"Of course we need you, Grunkle Ford!" Mabel cried. She climbed down off of Stan's lap, came over to Ford, and grabbed the right sleeve of his sweater, Dipper having never let go of Ford's left sleeve after Ford released him from the hug earlier. The two of them gripped him tightly, as if they could keep him from leaving just by the force of their hold. "Who else is going to take me to search for the mythical unipegapony?"

"And who else is going to play Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons with me?" Dipper added.

"And you think I spent over twenty-five years trying to fix that portal just to make up for a mistake?" Stan asked. "This is where you belong Ford, with your family."

"I…"

"I'm sorry I hit you earlier. Well, I'm mostly sorry. So please stay," Mabel said.

"Please, Grunkle Ford?" Dipper added.

Ford looked at the three of them, all watching him with open, hopeful expressions, though Stan's was a little more hidden than the kids' were. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath in. Then he let it out, imagining he could feel decades' worth of stress and uncertainty and paranoia go with it. "Alright. I'll stay."

The kids cheered. "Awkward family hug?" Dipper suggested.

"Awkward family hug!" Mabel agreed enthusiastically, and both kids threw their arms around his neck.

Ford wrapped one arm around each of them, feeling for the first time since he couldn't remember when that he was at last where he belonged. He looked up at his brother, smiling. "Stanley?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming," Stan said, but his grumbling was no mask for his pleased expression as he knelt down next to them and joined their group hug, which, despite the name, was far from awkward.

Ford and Stan still had things to work out between them, he knew. The many years of misunderstanding and resentment and anger, even misplaced anger, didn't go away over the course of a single conversation. And Ford suspected he would still have some work to do to fully make up for his mistakes with the little niblings as well. But they were a family, so whatever was needed, they'd do it, and however long it took, they'd get there.

Maybe it really was just that simple.


	11. Forgotten, But Not Gone

Ford sat down at the kitchen table, where Stan was busy sewing together some taxidermy monstrosity for the Mystery Shack – really, if they were going to keep that tourist trap open, which was probably the prudent choice at the moment, since Ford did not presently have a source of income and they had themselves and two children to support, then they were going to have to discuss putting in some actually factual exhibits about real anomalies – crossed his arms, and stared at his brother.

"Alright, alright, geez," Stan said after a few minutes. "Whatever point you're trying to make, you've made it. Just, stop being creepy."

"I know you know what happened to Fiddleford," Ford said.

"Who said anything about me knowing anything about what happened to your friend?" Stan asked defensively.

"No one, but if you truly didn't know, you would have said as much by now, rather than dodging the question every time I bring the subject up," Ford pointed out. He hadn't felt entirely comfortable pushing the situation on the earlier occasions when he had asked, while his and Stan's relationship had still been… tenuous might be a delicate way to put it. He hadn't felt comfortable trying to talk to Stan about anything at all, to be honest, and had been willing to allow Stan to put him off, just to get out of the conversation that much quicker. But it had been ten days since their big talk, when the family had convinced Ford to stay with them, and things between Ford and Stan were not completely better, exactly, but much better than they had been. So now Ford was pushing. Fiddleford was his friend, and Ford had messed up terribly with him; Ford owed it to Fiddleford to make sure he'd come out of it all okay.

"I don't know what happened-"

"Stanley!"

"Okay. It's just… look, I'm not even completely sure it's the same guy," Stan said.

"How many Fiddleford Hadron McGuckets do you think there are in the world?"

"Well, it's not like I'm on a full name basis with the guy. I know his last name is McGucket, but I'm not sure about his first name. Did your friend have a kid? He's in his, what, early thirties now, so he'd probably been pretty little back then," said Stan.

"Yes, that's be Tate. He was three when Fiddleford moved up to Gravity Falls as I recall. Or maybe he was seven," Ford said uncertainly. Well, it was somewhere in that range anyway.

"Yeah, I was afraid you were gonna say that."

"What do you mean by that?" Ford demanded. "You're being incredibly cryptic."

"I think it's probably better if you see for yourself," Stan said, standing up.

"You mean he still lives here in town?" Ford asked.

"In a manner of speaking," Stan agreed.

"In a… is he-"

"No, not dead, sorry," Stan said, and Ford let out a sigh of relief. "But he is really… different from how you remember him."

"How could you possibly know that; a minute ago you weren't even sure we were talking about the same person," Ford objected.

"Trust me, I know," Stan said, still being cryptic.

Stan swiped his keys off the counter, and Ford stood up as well, resigning himself to going along with whatever Stan was up to if he wanted to get any answers. "Hey kids!" Stan called, and a moment later Mabel trotted in from the TV room. "Where's your brother?"

"I think he's upstairs reading his new book," Mabel said.

"Okay, well Ford and I are going out for a bit."

"And I'm in charge until you get back?" Mabel said hopefully.

"You and your brother are both in charge. Unless Soos or Wendy swings by, in which case they're in charge," Stan told her.

"Rats," Mabel said, snapping her fingers. "Hey, where are you guys going anyway?"

"I'm taking Ford out to see McGucket," Stan said.

"Oh," said Mabel. Her eyes went wide and solemn, and then she ran over to Ford and hugged him around the middle. "Don't worry Grunkle Ford, I'm sure everything will work out okay. And I'm going to have hot chocolate waiting for you when you guys get back."

That did not bode well.

"It's over eighty degrees out right now," Stan said.

" _Hot chocolate_ , Grunkle Stan."

"Well, can't argue with that," said Stan and Ford found himself smiling in spite of the situation. These people, his family, were ridiculous, and it was strangely endearing. "But make it in the microwave; no using the stove without adult supervision."

"Or the oven, and Soos doesn't count as adult supervision. I _know_ ," Mabel said, exasperated. "You set the kitchen on fire one time… And it wasn't even a very big fire."

"Yeah, yeah. And no glitter in mine," Stan added as Mabel started rummaging through the cupboards.

"I make zero promises!"

Stan glared at Ford and grumbled under his breath, "What possessed you to get her edible glitter for her birthday..." The short answer to that was, of course, that it made Mabel happy, ecstatic even. The longer answer was it made Mabel happy, which was great for Ford because despite the fact that the kids appeared to have completely forgiven him for the incident after he first arrived back in this dimension, he still felt the need to court their good opinion somewhat, and it was better than eating regular glitter, which seemed like the only other option at times.

Stan turned around and grabbed the door handle. "Come on, let's get this over with."

"Uh, Stan? You may want to put on some pants first," Ford said.

Stan looked down at himself, still dressed in only his boxers and an undershirt. "Oh for the love of. Alright, we leave in five minutes," he said storming back off into the house in the direction of his room.

The car ride out to see Fiddleford was mostly accomplished in silence. Despite the seemingly endless string of questions that wanted to burst out of him, Ford kept his peace, well aware that Stan was unlikely to answer any of them at the moment. Though "in silence" wasn't entirely accurate, more like with a lack of verbal discourse. Stan was full of nervous energy, turning the radio on and flipping lightning quick through a handful of stations before turning it off again, drumming his fingers on the wheel and the clutch, tapping his left foot against the floor, and just constantly showing a basic inability to sit still. Ford was about to demand that Stan tell him what was going on before the tension killed them both, when the car finally pulled to a stop.

"We're here," Stan announced, getting out of the car.

"Stanley, this is the junkyard."

"Yeah, I know," Stan said. He walked over to the fence surrounding the place, easily lifting it up and creating a gaping hole for them to duck through. "Not much farther to go now."

"To get to where?" Ford asked, feeling even more confused and apprehensive than he had before, if that was possible.

Stan didn't answer, just led Ford around the nearest towering pile of garbage to reveal, tucked away on the other side… building would be an overly generous term for it. Really, for all that Stan had taken to calling Ford's cabin "the shack," here was a structure truly deserving of that title. "McGucket, you home?"

Someone might be forgiven for assuming that because Ford was the "smart" twin, that Stan must be the "strong" twin, especially if that someone had grown up on a diet of sitcoms. It was even true to a certain degree, since Stan had more muscle mass and natural athleticism than Ford, though those differences had mostly evened out by now, what with Ford keeping up a strict exercise regime for the past thirty-five years while Stan hadn't. It would be understandable as well if the concept of smart vs. strong twin were then extended to the conclusion that Ford must be the wimpy one, and Stan the brave. But while Ford had more than his fair share of the intellect between the two of them, and Stan the charm, they had both been gifted with equal measures of bravery and, if Ford was being completely honest, reckless stupidity. When they had been kids getting into adventure, or trouble as the case more often was, it had always been both of them rushing in headlong, side-by-side.

Which made Ford's sudden desire to hide behind Stan, to grab onto his brother and beg him to make this all stop and go away, Ford didn't want it, all the more inexplicable.

The man who emerged from the hovel _had_ to be Fiddleford, all logic surrounding the situation dictated it, and what's more, Ford recognized him. Of course he did, Fiddleford was his best friend, one of the few friends he had – very few, if one didn't count family. But look at Fiddleford now. He looked impossibly old, in his seventies or eighties at least, for all that Ford knew them both to be the same age. Fiddleford was hunched and wizened and gaunt and wearing old dirty torn clothing and bandages and his gaze was wall-eyed and unfocused, though the last might be due to his missing glasses.

Is this what Fiddleford's glimpse into the Nightmare Realm had done to him? Is this what Stanford, in his arrogance and ignorance, had done to his friend?

"Visitors!" Fiddleford cried, and even his voice was different now: the more cultured strains of his accent gone and the whole thing was much more… Appalachian. "Well, come on in."

Ford was frozen to the spot, but then he felt Stan's hand on his shoulder, gently leading him inside Fiddleford's dwelling, and then guiding him to sit down on some scraps of rusty metal, the whole thing happening through a hazy veil of numb horror. "Fiddleford," he said after a few minutes had lapsed, heedless of the small talk that Stan had been making with Fiddleford, which Ford was now interrupting. "Don't you recognize me?"

"Can't be sayin' as I do, feller," Fiddleford said, scratching the back of his head. "I'd say my memory ain't what it used t'be, 'cept fer I can't rememberate what it used t'be." Fiddlerford laughed at his own joke, but there was something pained in the sound.

Memory, of course. Ford had known that Fiddleford had had trouble dealing with the more frightening aspects of their work, and he had always suspected that Fiddleford might not have destroyed the memory gun like he had claimed. And if he had had that experimental memory gun on him after being exposed to Bill's Nightmare Realm…

This was all Ford's fault. He should have tried harder to impress on Fiddleford the potential dangers of the memory gun. He should have insisted on destroying the thing himself. Should have said something when he began to suspect that Fiddleford might still have it. Should have listened to Fiddleford's warnings about the portal. Should have followed Fiddleford out on the day of the disastrous portal test. Should have gone to find Fiddleford after he had learned the truth about Bill. Should have-

No. "Should haves" didn't change anything, and there was no point in dwelling on them. Especially not when there was something that he could do now.

"Fiddleford, would you mind if my brother and I stepped out to speak privately for a moment?" Ford asked.

"No, that don't bother me none," Fiddleford said, but he sounded somewhat uncertain about it.

"Thank you. We'll be just a minute," Ford said. He attempted to give Fiddleford a reassuring smile, though given his current state of mind, heaven knew how his expression actually came off.

"It's not as bad as it looks," Stan said as soon of the two of them were outside. "Who am I kidding, it's worse than it looks; the guy once built a giant robot that blew up the entire downtown because some guy no one had heard of didn't come to a retirement party that McGucket didn't have. Sorry, I knew I should have warned you before we came –"

"I think we should have Fiddleford come live with us."

"– but I just wasn't sure how to… what did you just say?"

"I think we should bring Fiddleford home with us," Ford reiterated.

"We can't just bring him home with us," Stan objected. "He's a person, not a puppy."

"He's a person who needs help. I mean, look at where he's living. You were right, he's not the same as when I knew him; he's sick and he needs someone to help him get better. I'm fairly certain I know what caused it and I think I might be able to fix it… somehow. I have to try at least." A small part of Ford wanted to point out it was his house and he could let anyone he wanted to stay there. But he pushed that thought away as quickly as it came; even if it was technically his house, it was all of their home, and Ford wasn't going to go down that path, not again. So instead he concluded with, "He's my friend."

Stan groaned. "Don't look at me with those puppy dog eyes. You're a grown man; it's embarrassing. And I want you to make sure that first thing you do when we get back is to make sure he gets a real shower, with hot water and a whole lotta soap."

A grin bloomed across Ford's face. "I'm pretty sure Mabel is going to insist on hot chocolate first thing."

"Fine, hot chocolate first, and then a shower. I'm serious, Stanford; the guy smells worse than you did when you came out of the portal, and you smelled like a dumpster full of rotten shrimp," Stan said.

Ford thought about reminding his brother that he couldn't have possibly smelled like shrimp, snice there were none in the dimension he had most recently come from, but he let it go as a fight he was never going to win, and didn't really matter all that much anyway. "Thank you, Stanley."

"Yeah, well, he doesn't seem like he's dangerous, killer robots aside, and I figure what's one more broken old man in that house anyway."

Struck by a sudden urge, Ford reached over and hugged his brother. Stan seemed surprised by the gesture, but barely missed a beat before hugging Ford back. "What was that for?" Stan asked afterward.

Ford opened his mouth to say he didn't know, but what came out instead was, "You're a good brother."

"Geez Sixer. You're getting sappy on me in your old age," Stan grumbled, but he looked pleased.

The two of them walked back inside Fiddleford's shack, and Fiddleford instantly brightened at seeing them. "Y'came back," he said, and it occurred to Ford that he must not get very many visitors.

Of course he didn't, Ford berated himself a moment later. Fiddleford lived in a junkyard; if there were anyone who cared about him enough to visit him on a regular basis, then he wouldn't even still be here in the first place. "I told you we would be," Ford reminded him.

"I reckon you did," Fiddleford agreed, and he looked so happy that it made it a little easier for Ford to say what he wanted to next.

"Actually, Stan and I discussed it, and we think that it would be best if you came and stayed with us for a while," Ford said.

At first when Fiddleford didn't respond right away, Ford thought it was due to surprise. But then Ford noticed that Fiddleford was shaking, and mumbling a litany under his breath, growing louder with each repetition. "No, no, no, no," he said, over and over again until he was shouting the words. "No! I ain't going back to that demon house and you can't make me!"

Ford found himself frozen again, though this time it only took a slight nudge from Stan to send him across the room, where he grabbed Fiddleford's shoulders and looked the man in the eye. "Fiddleford listen to me: the portal is gone. I promise you, it's gone. Stan blew it up and I scrapped it for parts. It can't hurt you anymore. I wouldn't let it hurt you anymore; I want to help you," Ford pleaded, though he didn't know if Fiddleford could hear him over the constant repetition of the word "no," if he was even listening. "You don't even have to come back to the cabin if you don't want, just _please_ , Fidds." Ford's voice broke with emotion, and he could feel the tears starting to run down his cheeks at the sight of his friend in this state. "Let me help."

For just a moment, Fiddleford's gaze seem to clear as he focused on Ford. "Stanford…?"

"Yes!" Ford agreed, a small smile making its way across his features, as he reached up to wipe under his eyes. "Yes, my name is Stanford Pines. Do you remember me at all?"

Fiddleford shook his head, though whether out of negation or just to clear it, Ford couldn't tell. "I don't… I used t'know you. Before 1982. And you want t'help me get my memories back?"

"Yes. We were friends in college and you originally came up to Gravity Falls to assist me with my work. And… it's my fault you ended up this way," Ford admitted. "So whatever it takes, if you want to come home with us, or if you'd rather go somewhere else, or even stay here, I'll help you."

"We'll help you," Stan said, placing a hand on Ford's shoulder. "I mean, Ford here is definitely going to be your go-to guy, but I guess we can all pitch in a little bit. That's what families do for each other."

Ford brought one of his own hands up to cover Stan's, squeezing it in the hopes that it might convey the depth of his gratitude. "So what do you say, Fiddleford? Will you let me, let _us_ help?"

Fiddleford glanced at Stan, and then looked back at Ford. He stared at him for a long time before finally giving one slow nod of his head. "Okay."

* * *

Fiddleford sat in the backseat of the car, with the bindle all full of his stuff in his lap. His raccoon girlfriend was goin' t'be upset that he'd up and left without tellin' her, but they hadn't been seein' each other that long; she'd get over him. He also got all his doodles piled up on the seat next t'him. Fiddleford was just goin' t'leave 'em at his house, but that feller up in the passenger seat had tooken a look at 'em and got real exciticified, said they had to bring 'em. _Stanford Pines_ , Fiddleford told himself. _That feller's name is Stanford Pines_.

Fiddleford didn't remember much of anything, and nothin' before 1982, but there were things he knew. Like his name: Fiddleford H. McGucket. He knew it on account of people used to tell him it over and over until it stuck. Then when nobody stopped tellin' him nothin', he told himself. _Your name is Fiddleford H. McGucket._ The H used t'stand fer somethin', but now it was just an H. Tate prob'ly knew what it stood fer, but Tate didn't talk to him no more.

But Fiddleford remembered Stanford Pines, or at least he had fer just a second. Even now that he didn't remember him, Fiddleford could remember remembering him. The one imperfection in the big ol' white haze inside his noggin, and Fiddleford clung to it. _That feller's name is Stanford Pines, and he is goin' t'help y'figure out who y'used to be._

"Hey feller, Stanford," – _Stanford Pines, Stanford Pines, Stanford Pines_ – "Do y'know what the H in my name is what fer?"

"Hadron," Stanford said. He turned 'round in his seat t'look at Fiddleford and he was smilin' and cryin' a little at the same time. Crazy feller. But then, Fiddleford had always thought that Ford must be just a bit touched in the head. "Your middle name is Hadron."

Huh. Fiddleford Hadron McGucket. Well. Alrighty then.


	12. When the Rain Starts to Pour

AN: Chapter title is from the song "I'll Be There For You" by The Rembrandts (a.k.a, the Friends theme song).

* * *

Mabel kicked and punched and wriggled and bit and did everything she could to get free. "You better let me and my brother go right now, Mr. Gleeful" – the man holding her jumped a bit. Ha! Did he think she wouldn't recognize him just because he was wearing a stupid hood? – "or else my grunkles are going to beat you up when I tell 'em about this."

It wasn't supposed to be like this. She and Dipper were supposed to be having a fun day at the stuffy old history museum with Grunkle Ford and Fiddleford while the two of them tried to investigate what happened to make Fiddleford lose all his memories. They knew it had something to do with the memory-erasing gun that Fiddleford had built way before, but they wanted to figure what exactly went down. Except it turned out that Grunkle Ford and Fiddleford's way of investigating was super boring and involved a lot of smart people talk, so Mabel convinced Dipper to come with her so they could do their own investigating. Which had been a total success – Mystery Twins rule! Dipper had found the weird hole in the wall with a tube running down it and Mabel came up with the awesome idea to slide down it like they were firemen. Then at the bottom there was these huge pair of doors with a big ol' eye on them. That's probably when they should have gone to get Grunkle Ford and Fiddleford, but they had been too excited, so they had opened the door and behind it was a whole room full of little tube things and as they were standing there, one of the little tube things came shooting down the main tube thing they had slid down and landed on the pile with the rest. And when they looked at it, it had a little label that said "TYLER C. MEMORIES." After that everything started happening really fast and next thing Mabel knew, Mr. Gleeful was holding her while Dipper was being strapped down to a chair by some more of the creepy robe guys who were going to erase his memory. And Mabel had to get free so she could save her brother.

"Don't you worry about us none, sugar," Mr. Gleeful said. Mabel snarled at him; he wasn't allowed to call her that any more. "In a few minutes you won't remember anything to tell your great uncles at all."

Mabel screamed as loud as she could. She had to get to her brother and save him before they erased his memories and tried to break his mind like they broke Fiddleford's. "Dipper!"

"Mabel!" Dipper yelled back, and Mabel had to get away and save him, she _had_ to.

Then they heard the best sound in the whole wide world. "Put the memory gun down and step away from my niece and nephew this instant." Grunkle Ford looked and sounded scarier than Mabel had ever seen or heard ever before with his space gun pressed against the leader of the creepy robe guys's back and his voice hard and cold like ice, and Mabel thought she was going to cry because it was okay now, they were safe because Grunkle Ford was going to protect them.

Suddenly Mr. Gleeful fell to the ground with a pained moan, but Mabel didn't care about him – she _hated_ him now. All Mabel cared about was she was free, and she ran over to Dipper and started tugging at the straps holding his arms down. Then she thought she was going to cry again, because the straps wouldn't come off, but then Fiddleford came up behind her and guided her hands to the clasp, which she pulled open while Fiddleford went around and did the other side.

As soon as Dipper was free, Mabel clambered up into the chair with him, hugged him, and said his name over and over again – "Dipper-Dipper-Dipper-Dipper" – so he wouldn't ever forget who he was, and Dipper held her back just as tight. It was okay now; they were safe. Grunkle Ford was telling all the creepy robe guys off in his scary voice and breaking their memory gun under his foot, and Fiddleford was standing next to Dipper and Mabel with a shovel in his hands, ready to knock any of the creepy robe guys that might try to sneak away from Grunkle Ford.

After a few minutes the creepy robe guys left – ran off scared, more like – and Grunkle Ford walked over to Mabel and Dipper. "Sweetheart?" he said, putting a hand on Mabel's back. Mabel turned around and launched herself at him, knocking him flat on his butt. Then Dipper got down from the chair and climbed into Grunkle Ford's lap too, and they both hugged him as tight as they could. That's when Mabel really and actually started to cry.

Grunkle Ford stroked her hair and down her back and she thought he was doing the same thing for Dipper too, who wasn't crying exactly, but he was making weird sad hiccup-y sounds. Mabel buried her face in Grunkle Ford's sweater and felt the rumbling of his chest as he hummed reassuringly at them and occasionally said things like "It's okay," and "You're safe now," and "I won't ever let them hurt you."

It took a little while, but finally Mabel stopped crying, and Dipper looked calmer too. "I think it's time we go home," Grunkle Ford said.

"No! We can't leave yet," Dipper protested.

"Fiddleford," Mabel said, reaching out for him.

Fiddleford took her hand and came a couple of steps closer. "What is it, little sweet tea?"

"We got something for you," she told him. Mabel reached into the super-secret pocket inside her sweater – for candy and stickers and glitter and anything else she might need at any moment – and pulled out the little tube she'd put in there. She handed it to Fiddleford and explained, "Dipper found that, but when he picked it up it set off all these alarms, so I hid it inside my sweater to keep it safe. And then those creepy robe guys came and said we'd seen too much and that we had to tell them where we hid the memory tube or else they'd erase all our memories."

"Wait a second," Dipper said. "If they had erased our memories like they wanted to, then how were we supposed to tell them where we hid the memory tube?"

"Hey yeah," Mabel agreed, and then she giggled, just a little bit. "That was pretty stupid of them, huh?"

"You kids got this for me?" Fiddleford said, his voice all soft and amazed.

"Well, yeah," said Dipper. "You're our friend."

"Our friend who lives in the same house as us, so basically you're family," Mabel added. And not the bad kind of family, like Aunt Karen who only called them once a year on the Sunday closest to their birthday. Fiddleford was the good kind of family, who helped make cool inventions for Grunkle Stan to use at the Mystery Shack, and who listened to all of Dipper's smart person talk, and who said Mabel was nicer than an ice cold glass of Southern sweet tea, and made Grunkle Ford really happy, and a little sad too, but the good kind of sad that meant you cared about someone.

"What is it?" Grunkle Ford asked, and his voice was all soft too. Fiddleford turned the tube around so Grunkle Ford could read the label, "McGUCKET MEMORIES." Grunkle Ford opened his mouth and closed it a few times, but he sometimes wasn't that good with words to express his emotions, so he ended up just hugging Dipper and Mabel tight, tight, tight. And that was fine; they understood what he meant.

"There's a TV in the other room with all the memory tubes that you can use to watch them on," Dipper told them. "So we can't leave yet." Mabel nodded, even if she really did want to leave this spooky place and go home. They had to let Fiddleford watch his memories first.

"Y'know, I reckon we ought t'be able to reconfiger this here doo-dad to work so we can play it on the TV at home," Fiddleford said.

"I'm sure we can," Grunkle Ford agreed. Then he stood up, picking up both Dipper and Mabel like it was nothing, 'cause Grunkle Ford was really strong and he could have beat up all those creepy robe guys if he had wanted to, he just hadn't because it was scarier that way. "Come on, let's get you two home."

Once they pulled up in front of their house, they went straight into the gift shop, so Grunkle Ford and Fiddleford could go down to the basement and work on fixing up the memory tube. Plus Grunkle Stan was in the gift shop scamming tourists, and as soon as Mabel saw him she dropped Grunkle Ford's hand and ran over to Grunkle Stan and hugged him tight. Because even though Mabel loved Grunkle Ford just as much as she loved Grunkle Stan, she had loved Grunkle Stan for a lot longer than she had loved Grunkle Ford, so it was easier for her brain to remember she was safe when Grunkle Stan was there.

"Hey there sweetie, something the matter?" Grunkle Stan asked. He put his hands on Mabel's shoulders and tried to push her away just a little bit so he could look at her, but Mabel held on tight.

"We had a bit of a run-in today at the museum," Grunkle Ford said, then he quickly explained what happened.

After Grunkle Ford was done explaining, Grunkle Stan bent down and picked Mabel up. She wrapped her arms tight around his neck and placed her head on his shoulder. "Okay, the Mystery Shack closes in ten minutes so everyone buy your junk and get out," Grunkle Stan demanded. "Soos, you're in charge of wrapping things up in here. Dipper, you come with me and your sister so the two Fords here can go work on their memory thing."

Dipper let go of Grunkle Ford's hand to take the one Grunkle Stan was offering, and then they all went together into the TV room. Grunkle Stan sat down on his chair with Mabel in his lap, and Dipper came up and joined them. Grunkle Stan grumbled about how they were getting too big to fit both of them up here like this, but Grunkle Stan was always grumbling about something – he had to keep his street cred as a grumpy old man – and he didn't really mean it. He even let them put on the cartoon they liked that he said was too super-real for him, whatever that meant. Half an episode later, Soos came in and sat on the floor right in front of Grunkle Stan's chair and started watching it with them. That's when Mabel finally felt like everything was getting back to normal again.

An episode and a half of that show, plus two episodes of a different cartoon that Mabel was pretty sure Grunkle Stan liked even better than they did, later, Grunkle Ford and Fiddleford came in with one of those old school VCR tapes in Grunkle Ford's hand. "I think we've got it figured out; do you all mind if we borrow the TV?" Grunkle Ford asked.

"Next episode is a rerun anyway," Grunkle Stan said. "Soos, fix the TV up so it's running off the VCR, would ya?"

"Sure thing," Soos said, going over to the TV and grabbing the tape from Grunkle Ford on the way. "You can have my seat, Mr. Fiddleford, dude. Best spot in the house."

Fiddleford sat down in front of Grunkle Stan's chair where Soos had been, except for he sat just a little bit further away. Then Grunkle Ford sat down on the floor on Fiddleford's one side, and after Soos was done with the TV, he sat down on the other.

After the first couple of memories, it was clear to Mabel that this video was going to be super sad. Sadness like this called for the Power of Mabel. She climbed down off of Grunkle Stan's lap and went to go sit in Fiddleford's lap instead. Grunkle Ford had already put his hand on Fiddleford's shoulder on one side, so Mabel reached out to hold Soos's hand and pull him closer until he was pressed up right against Fiddleford's other side. Then Mabel snuggled back into Fiddleford as hard as she could, until he was scooched all the way back into Grunkle Stan's legs. Once Fiddleford was closer, Dipper, the Power of Mabel's number one assistant, rested both his feet on Fiddleford's other shoulder, so that Mabel could feel his sock-covered big toes touching against the back of her head. And, even though the video was really sad, Mabel gave a happy sigh and smiled.

(She didn't look to check, but she was pretty sure Fiddleford did too.)


	13. Home

AN: Full chapter title is Home (if you get lost, you can always be found)

I think this is spelled out pretty clearly in the story, but just to avoid anyone getting confused, let me clarify: there are two Fords in this story. The first is Dimensional Traveler!Ford, who is the POV character. His point of divergence from canon Ford takes place at the start of the story when he winds up in the Elementary Falls dimension. The narration of the story will refer to him as "Ford" while the other characters will call him "Stanford." Then there's the Elementary Falls!Ford, who will be referred to by the narration as "Parallel Ford" and the characters as "Ford." This story takes place the summer of 2012, when Dipper and Mabel are twelve.

* * *

Ford stepped through the temporary wormhole he had created for himself and was surprised to come out the other side not in the midst of a gravity-free sea of lightning and swirling color, but in a large clearing in a coniferous forest of some kind. How had he _missed_ the Nightmare Realm? It was literally the easiest dimension, for lack of a better word, to get into, since it existed in the spaces between all the other dimensions. He must not have properly deactivated the safety mechanisms intended to prevent the portal gun from connecting to the Nightmare Realm, and ended up punching straight through to the next dimension.

He didn't have much time to puzzle over this, however, because almost immediately a hand came down on his shoulder, accompanied by a voice just familiar enough that he didn't immediately attack the person who'd grabbed him. "You've got a rare treat here today folks; the elusive invisible doppelganger." The hand on his shoulder spun him around, and Ford was confronted with the sight of his twin brother, but a strange parallel version of him, old and grey and dressed up like a carnival barker in their dad's old suit and fez. He was speaking to a group of people, all rather… unintelligent looking, with a smattering of cameras and fanny packs and at least three Hawaiian shirts between them. "They're normally invisible but occasionally they'll appear in a burst of light, looking like whoever's closest. But you can always tell who the real deal is, because they can't get it completely right. Note the cleft chin, and the ridiculous hair," Stan said, gesturing at Ford as he did so.

The people ohh'd and ahh'd over Stan's nonsensical explanation for Ford's sudden appearance. "His hair is really fluffy," one of them commented.

"I want to touch it," another said.

"You are _not_ touching my hair," Ford snapped.

Stan gave a fake and grating laugh and smacked Ford on the shoulder. "These doppelgangers can be pretty testy. Let's move on to the next exhibit, over that way." The people obediently shuffled off in the direction Stan pointed, and Stan turned back to look at Ford. "Yeesh, when's the last time you washed those clothes?"

"Stan, I need to speak with you, privately," Ford said, ignoring the question.

"I'm in the middle of a tour right now; it can wait twenty minutes. Unless it's an emergency?" Stan asked, and from his expression Ford could tell that if he said it was, Stan would drop whatever he was doing to deal with it.

Maybe that's why Ford found himself willing to say, "No, I don't suppose it's urgent." Really, aside from the fact that this was the first time Ford had met a parallel version of his brother, this was pretty on routine for the last thirty years or so of his life.

"Alright, why don't you go wait in the Shack? Maybe the kids can help you with whatever you're working on." Stan indicated to the left, toward a building that was unmistakably Ford's house, though it was very different from the one he remembered from his own universe.

In a way this version of his house was even stranger to see than the one in the last dimension he'd been in. Because even though that parallel Earth had built a sprawling institute all around his house, the cabin itself had been preserved almost like a shrine, in the exact same condition that Ford recalled his own being in, minus a few of the security measures he had put up in his paranoid and sleep-deprived state. But this place…

The first thing that struck him was the huge sign up on the roof reading "MYSTERY SHACK," with the S in "SHACK" having noticeably more hardware affixing it to the roof than the other letters. In fact, there were numerous signs on and around the cabin calling it the Mystery Shack and the door to his old storage room now had a sign declaring it to be the gift shop, like his house was some kind of trashy tourist trap. Well, that would explain the tourists, Ford supposed. The cabin was also larger than the one he had lived in, someone having extended the back wall out by about three feet on the first two floors and, although it was hard to tell from this angle, it looked like the back wall went on for maybe ten feet longer than it had as well.

It was far from the strangest thing he'd encountered in his thirty years traversing the multiverse, and yet it was with a slight sense of apprehension that he approached the… shack. Apprehension and outrage, though he attempted to quell the latter by reminding himself that no matter the congruencies, this was a different dimension and therefore was _not_ his house that Stan had done this to. He went in the door marked gift shop, half-unable to believe that someone would actually put a gift shop in their house, but sure enough that's what it was, complete with tacky souvenirs at ridiculous prices and a bored teenager sitting behind the cash register – a red-head who was currently having her nails painted by a younger blonde girl who was perched up on the counter.

"I don't know why I even bother," the blonde girl was saying. "You're just going to get them all chipped again by tomorrow."

"I don't know why I let you bother, except I have nothing better to do," the red-head replied, looking about as enthusiastic about the proceedings as the blonde girl did. "And your options are this, playing that math game with the nerds, or watching the movie with the giant doofy star for the hundredth time. Or I guess you could have stayed home, where your parents are."

The blonde girl crinkled her nose in distaste. "None of the above, thank you," she said, but she continued on painting the red-head's nails.

Ford awkwardly cleared his throat.

"Oh thank goodness, you're done," the blonde girl said, putting the brush back in her bottle of nail polish. "Come on, Mabel wanted to talk to you."

"Pacifica," the red-head said, holding up her hand to show off two nails painted a deep green, and three that were still uncolored.

"Fine," the blonde girl, Pacifica, said, pulling the brush back out. She wiped it against the opening of the bottle and then pointed it accusatorially at Ford. "But you tell Mabel that you all aren't leaving without me."

Ford stood there for a few moments longer, not sure what he should do, what with everyone mistaking him for this dimension's Ford. The red-head gave him a funny look after a moment and said, "She's in the living room," tilting her head to indicate the "Employees Only" door, which lead into the rest of the house.

"Thanks," he said. Maybe this Mabel could help him sort out what this dimension was, or failing that, his parallel self was bound to be able to clarify matters, so long as they were careful not to touch each other.

Going through the door led him out into a hallway where what appeared to be one of the hairless gopher people of the dimension Rodentus 7 was changing a lightbulb. "Hey Mr. Dr. Pines," the gopher said. "We're still on for later, right?"

"Yes," Ford hazarded. "But at the moment I was looking for Mabel. Could you point me in her direction?"

"Yeah, sure. She's in the living room," said the gopher, pointing behind him and to Ford's right.

Ford continued down the hallway until there was an opening to his left, leading into what had to be the living room where two little girls and a pig were watching TV. "Mabel?"

Both girls turned to look at him, and then the slighter of the two with the curly brown hair grinned, her braces glinting in the light. "Grunkle Ford! Are you guys all done?" Then her smile dropped as she eyed him suspiciously. "Wait a second. Those clothes… You said you guys were going to play that Dungeons game, not dimensional traveler. You know me and Grenda would have played with you!"

"Yeah, Dr. Ford!" the second girl said with a surprisingly deep and gravelly voice.

"But that's okay, you can make it up to me by taking us to see the unicorns; I need some of their hair for the sweater I'm working on. Grenda's voice is deep enough to open the enchanted glade, but last time we went there without you, Celestabellebethabelle didn't want to give us any of her hair," Mabel said.

"She was getting uppity with us," Grenda added.

Ford was saved from having to respond to this request in any way by the sound of voices and footsteps coming from the opposite direction. A moment later, four people entered the living room, talking spiritedly about what sounded like a game of Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons: two more children – a boy that looked like he was probably Mabel's brother and an Asian girl – this dimension's Ford, wearing much neater clothing than Ford himself was including a t-shirt revealing his distinct lack of tattoo, that lucky jerk, and…

Fiddleford, or at least that's who his brain had registered the last person as, but it _couldn't_ be Fiddleford. Ford had just seen Fiddleford, or another dimension's version of Fiddleford, and while he'd certainly looked older than he had the last time Ford had seen him thirty years ago, he had aged well, still in good shape, or at least as good as he'd ever been, with the same vitality and spring to his step that Ford remembered from a much younger him. But this man… The spring was still there, but his body was old and wizened, complete with a snow white beard more befitting a man who was yet another thirty years older. Ford felt a pang of guilt course through him at the sight; was this what he had abandoned his own Fiddleford to?

Ford was so distracted by the sight of his old friend that he failed to notice straight away that the conversation among the four stopped as soon as they entered the room and saw him there. "Mabel, Grenda, get behind me now," Parallel Ford said, him and Fiddleford stepping in front of the other two children. "I don't know what creature that is, but it isn't me."

"You reckon it could be the shapeshifter?" Fiddleford suggested, easily sidestepping for a moment to let the two little girls duck behind him like they'd been told to. Though Ford did notice that none of the children look particularly pleased at being pushed to the background, and all of them were craning their heads around to watch.

"The cryogenic tube was still holding him when I checked last week," Parallel Ford countered. "I suppose he has broken out before, however."

Ford thought he'd better speak up before the other two decided to knock him out now and ask questions later. He doubted that, unless he were to prove a danger to them or their charges, Fiddleford and Parallel Ford would do anything more extreme than knock him out and tie him up while they questioned him, and this would hardly be the first time something like that had happened to him. But if they attempted that, then it was almost certain that Parallel Ford would touch him at some point and then, well suffice to say being interrogated wasn't what Ford was worried about. So he held his hands up in a placating gesture and said, "I am Stanford Pines, just not the Stanford Pines from this dimension. I've been traveling the multiverse and ended up here, more or less on accident."

"You realize how very improbable that sounds," Parallel Ford said skeptically.

"But not impossible," Fiddleford pointed out.

"He's wearing the same clothes you were when we rescued you, Grunkle Ford," the boy said.

"Prove it; tell us something only the real Stanford Pines would know," Grenda demanded.

"Like what is your favorite color, or where were you when you came up with your potential solution to the Riemann hypothesis?" the Asian girl suggested.

Ford pondered the suggestion for a minute before saying, "The problem with that idea is I'd have no way of knowing what things are the same in this dimension: what experiences myself and the local version of Stanford Pines share, and which are unique to me. Anything that would be momentous enough that they would have to have happened the same for both dimensions to turn out as similarly as they appeared to have after my initial cursory exploration, would also be momentous enough that they would hardly classify as privileged information. And given the nature of Gravity Falls, even if I were to provide some sort of proof in the form of something only the 'real Stanford Pines,' which is a relative term at best, would know, that would not discount the possibility that I was a telepathic creature of some sort who gained the knowledge by rifling through this Ford's mind."

There was a beat of silence before Mabel decreed, "Whelp, I'm convinced," a comment that was met with murmurs of agreement from the assorted children and an ambiguous shrug from Fiddleford. Mabel darted out from behind Fiddleford and Parallel Ford, and approached Ford, offering out her hand. "Hi, I'm Mabel. I'm your great niece and also your greatest niece."

Ford felt his expression soften at the revelation that this enthusiastic little girl was his niece. And of course she was, just look at her: she even had the famous Pines hair curls. He kneeled down and took her hand, making the motions slow so as to not alarm the two men, though they seemed less wary of him now than they had a moment ago. Perhaps his comment had convinced them as well, or maybe they just trusted Mabel's judgement. "Greetings," he said, shaking her hand. "Do people say greetings in this dimension?"

"I don't see why not," she said.

"It's nice to meet you, Mabel. Is that your brother over there?" Ford asked, indicating the little boy that was still over on the other side of the room, though he'd come out from hiding behind the two adults. Ford was excited by the prospect of not only having a nephew as well as a niece, but having a nephew that was willing to play Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons with him, if he was understanding things correctly. Of course, just because the him of this dimension had a nephew, that didn't necessarily indicate that Ford himself had one back in his home dimension. But then, given how likely it was that he'd ever get back to his home dimension, he supposed what he did or didn't have there was irrelevant regardless.

"Yep, that's my twin Dipper," Mabel informed him. Twins! It must run in the family. "He's as big a nerd as you are. And my two best friends, Candy and Grenda, and you probably already know yourself and Fiddleford."

"Pleased to meet you all," Ford said, offering a friendly smile.

Just then, Stan entered the room from the same doorway Ford had used. "Alright, I wrapped the tour up early and I've got Wendy taking care of the tourist in the gift shop, so what was it you needed, Ford?" Stan paused and looked back and forth between Ford and Parallel Ford for a moment before turning to address Parallel Ford. "Have you been messing with that copier again?"

"Of course not. I destroyed it after what happened the last time," Parallel Ford answered, the reminder of 'last time' eliciting looks of horror on the faces of the males in the room and glee on the females.

"Probably a good idea," Stan agreed. "So why're there two of ya?"

"He claims that he's a dimensional traveler and version of me from another dimension," Parallel Ford said, his tone making it clear that, whatever the children, and possibly Fiddleford, might think, he was still dubious of these claims.

"Huh. Well I guess that would explain why this one just appeared out of nowhere in a flash of portal-shaped light," Stan mused. "I just thought you were trying to work on the teleportation thing again."

"Teleportation?" Fiddleford repeated, with the air of who has had this conversation many times before.

"What, so building a trans-universal poly-dimensional meta-vortex is mathematically feasible, but teleportation is where you draw the line?" Parallel Ford said. "I'm telling you, it's a viable theory; I just have to figure out how to compensate for the Earth's rotation and orbit. And the sun's orbit. And…"

"You got too many variables, ain't possible to keep track of all of them. Sarsaparilla, some of those variables aren't even defined. " said Fiddleford.

"You could avoid them altogether if you built a receiver at the other end to transport to," Ford suggested.

"I thought of that, but the potential applications would be too narrow at that point," Parallel Ford said.

"But what if you could get rid of all the airports and bus stations and whatnot and replaced them with transporter stations?" said Dipper.

"Brilliant idea, Dipper!" Parallel Ford said, placing a hand on top of the boy's head, and Dipper beamed up at him. "I hadn't even considered the possible commercial usages."

"Of course, you'd want to rework your plans to accommodate a large number of people at once," Ford said, already running the mental calculations as best he could without knowing what Parallel Ford had already put together.

"Yes, yes, and probably separate less sophisticated designs for the purposes of transporting large amounts of cargo," Parallel Ford agreed, taking a pen and a small notebook out of his back pocket to begin jotting things down.

Stan cleared his throat. Ford glared at him – they'd been having a breakthrough, and wasn't that just like Stan not to care about their work – but Parallel Ford looked a bit sheepish and put his notebook back in his pocket. "Which I can get to after we've addressed the current issue," Parallel Ford said. Ah, yes, Ford supposed that sorting out the dimensional traveler in your house would be the more pressing matter, wouldn't it?

"At any rate, it seems you really are who you say you are," Parallel Ford said, extending his hand to shake. "Nice to meet me."

Ford took an abrupt step back and threw his hands up again, but this time as a gesture intended to ward off. "It is absolutely imperative that you and I never touch. If we do, it will cause the two of us to fizz out of existence and this entire universe to collapse in on itself."

Parallel Ford obligingly lowered his hand and took a step back as well, though he still looked a bit skeptical. "I have to say, that sounds more like science fiction than science fact."

"You were literally just talking about inventing teleportation pads less than a minute ago," Stan pointed out dryly.

"I assure you, the danger is very real," Ford said. "I haven't witnessed it myself, but the Fiddleford of the last dimension I was in had; he was the one who warned me about it."

"Well in that case, we'll have to be certain we don't touch each other, and be careful to make sure we don't bump into one another accidentally as well."

"I've got just the thing!" Mabel cried, then she took off in the direction that the other four had come from, her two friends following on her heels.

"Any sort of long-term precautionary measure isn't really necessary," Ford called after her. "I won't be staying for all that long." But either Mabel didn't hear him, or she was just choosing to ignore him.

Then the gopher came around the corner, carrying what appeared to be a manuscript of some sort. He glanced back and forth between the two Fords for a moment and asked, "Have you dudes been messing around with the copier again?"

Despite his protests to Mabel, somehow Ford ended up staying for a week, which meant her 'just the thing' ended up coming very much in handy. He only wished that she had come up with something slightly less embarrassing than Parallel Ford and him wearing bells.

(Stan had laughed himself sick at the sight of them, which Ford had understood to a certain degree, even if he had found it extremely grating.

Parallel Ford had just smiled and said, "Knock it off, knucklehead," while cuffing Stan on the back of the head. "You do realize that if this dimension disappears all the money goes with it?"

Stan had sobered and fixed the two of them with a serious look. "You both put those bracelets on and you don't take them off. I'm not losing my money because of you."

"Yeah, I thought that'd get your attention," Parallel Ford had said, still smiling.)

Ford put the bracelet on when Mabel brought it to him, because Parallel Ford had and it seemed polite, but he really did mean to leave by the end of that first day, just as soon as he'd gotten his portal gun fixed, or, perhaps more accurately, broken in the very specific way he wanted to be. With another version of himself and Fiddleford helping him, it really shouldn't have taken longer than one afternoon. But it turned out that the gopher – who was actually a young man named Soos, and Dipper and Mabel's unofficial, or according to Mabel official if not legal, older brother – actually had been holding a manuscript, one that Parallel Ford had promised to go through with him one last time before he tried to send it off to publishers. And Ford got roped in to help with that, since he had technically agreed to do so, and it apparently didn't matter that he had been under the guise of Parallel Ford when he'd done it.

("This is actually quite good," Ford had said after reading one of the passages. Surprisingly so, given Soos's relative ineloquence.

"Thanks dude," Soos had said, ecstatic at the praise.

"It ought to be, we've spent four years editing it. You know, I'm still not certain about the transistion between these passages here," Parallel Ford had said, pointing to the passages in question.

"Four years?" Ford had echoed.

"Yeah, Mr. Dr. Pines has been helping me out a whole lot."

"Soos, I keep telling you, you can call me Ford," Parallel Ford had said. "Or Uncle Ford, if you prefer."

Going off of Soos's expression, Ford would have guessed he did prefer that, very much so, though he continued to refer to Parallel Ford as Mr. Dr. Pines regardless.)

The next morning all four of the younger girls – Mabel, Grenda, Candy and Pacifica – insisted that both Fords take them out on the trip to see the unicorns that had been postponed the previous day due to the sudden appearance of Ford himself and the editing of Soos's story. Ford wasn't entirely sure why his presence on this trip was deemed necessary, especially as he was certain he had not made any promises to attend as he had with Soos. But it was admittedly enjoyable to see the mingled horror and disgust on the unicorns' faces at the discovery that there were two Fords in this dimension now. Somehow all six of them neglected to mention that Ford wouldn't be staying for very long. And the hike through the woods both to the enchanted glade and back to the cabin, were fun as well.

("Other Grunkle Ford," Mabel had said, dropping back a bit so she could walk alongside him and poking him in the side. "We need to come up with a name for you."

"I have a name," Ford had said, confused. "It's Stanford Pines."

"I know _that_ ," Mabel had said, somehow turning the act of expelling air in order to talk into one with concussive force. "What I meant is you need a nickname. We can't keep calling you 'Other Grunkle Ford.'"

"Why not?" Ford had asked, growing further confused. It was a bit long, he supposed, but not to the point of being unwieldy, and it did a perfectly adequate job of describing him.

Mabel had eyed him. "I've got my work cut out for me with you. But a name! We need a name. Maybe we could call you by your middle name?"

"Our middle name was our father's name," Parallel Ford had put in mildly.

Mabel had scowled. "That's no good; your dad was a poop. Ooo, I know, we could call you Grunkle Sixer."

Ford hadn't winced at the sound of his old nickname, but part of him had wanted to. It had brought forth memories of Bill and older memories of his brother, the latter being less unpleasant, but much more complicated. "I'd prefer something else."

"Okay." Mabel had tapped thoughtfully on her chin. "How about Mason?"

"Mabel, you can't give him your brother's name," Parallel Ford had chided.

"What's wrong with him borrowing it? Dipper's not even using it right now, he won't mind," Mabel had said.

"Mabel."

"I still don't know what's wrong with my actual name," Ford had said.

"Fine, we'll call you Grunkle Stanford, for now. But I'm going to come up with the perfect name for you, you'll see. Girls, I've got a project for us!" Mabel had called, speeding her gait to catch up with her friends, who had been walking a few paces ahead of them.

"Is she always like that?" Ford had asked.

"She's not always that sedate," Parallel Ford had offered.)

After lunch Ford and the Parallel Ford had made it as far as the latter's study – now on the ground floor where Ford's thinking parlor used to be, though it was a good deal larger than his think parlor had been due to the expansions made to the house – before Dipper had poked his head in to say that he and Candy were thinking about playing another game of Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons, if either Ford or Parallel Ford wanted to join. Ford hadn't played the game in years, and found himself perfectly willing to waste one more afternoon if it meant a getting to play again. Upon learning that both Ford and Parallel Ford were going to be playing, Mabel and Grenda agreed to play as well, provided that someone else do their math and charts for them. Then Pacifica said if everyone else was going to play, then she would too, as it was better than painting Wendy's nails for the second day in a row. The kids fetched the necessary supplies from the attic, which had been opened up into one giant game room slash craft room slash study, and brought them down to the living room to play, on the grounds that is was closer to the kitchen for easy snack access. Wendy, Soos, and Stan were all working and so were unable to play with them, but they did wander through on occasion and they would usually then stop for a minute or two to observe.

(Stan had come through, likely when he was taking a break between tours, and had nursed a can of Pitt Cola while watching them for ten minutes or so. Then he had walked over to Parallel Ford, who was acting in the role of Probabilitor the Annoying for this round, and whispered something in his ear, which had elicited a mischievous grin from Parallel Ford. Dipper and Candy had sat up straighter in response, while the other girls had let out a collective groan.

"What is it?" Ford had asked.

"Mystery Twins Classic are way too hard to beat at this game when they team up," Mabel had said, dramatically flopping back onto her pet pig. Waddles had squirmed out from under her, dropping Mabel onto the floor with a loud oof, and then had turned around to lick her on the face, which Mabel had welcomed with a round of giggles.

"Come on you guys, it's more fun when it's a challenge," Dipper had said and Candy had agreed with him.

"No, it's more fun when we get to beat Probabilitor up," Grenda had corrected.

"Stan, you play Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons?" Ford had asked, incredulous. His own brother had never shown any interest in it back when they had been younger.

"Course not," Stan had scoffed. "No offense, but who wants to play a game where you have to use graphing paper?"

"Apparently we do," Pacifica had observed, sounding as though she didn't entirely disagree with Stan's sentiment, despite the fact that from what Ford had seen, she was nearly as good as Dipper or Candy were.

"Which makes me seriously question your sanity," Stan had said. "Nah, math and graphing paper are for nerds, but making stuff up? That's something I'm good at.")

The following morning, Ford managed to get an hour or so of work in, but then Fiddleford came over to help Parallel Ford with modifying his teleporter plans now that they were 'actually potentially feasible.' They offered to move down to one of the basement labs to work, or to allow Ford the use of one of them, so he could continue his own work on his portal gun in peace, but he declined; he was certain he could focus despite the conversation happening on the other side of the room. Unfortunately, Ford had underestimated how interesting their conversation would be, and after about twenty minutes of half-listening while trying to do his own work, Ford jumped in on their project instead.

Fairly quickly into their discussion they discovered that, while up until their sojourns into the Dimension without Shrimp – or rather into two separate parallel dimensions without shrimp, since they had both been there at presumably the same time, but obviously hadn't seen each other – Ford and Parallel Ford's lives had been more or less identical, from there they had diverged. For the last four years Ford had continued to explore the multiverse, expanding his breadth of knowledge with all the things he'd seen in the different dimensions, and Parallel Ford had returned to his own dimension and studied the things he had discovered on his pan-dimensional journey, enhancing his depth of understanding. As such, they were able to complement each other in their work, rather than each making the other redundant. Fiddleford, of course, was able to come up with ideas that neither Ford ever would have, both of them having what ultimately amounted to the same mind, and added some much needed perspective.

("I just wish you would have realized that thirty years ago," Fiddleford had joked, causing Parallel Ford's countenance to take on a guilty cast, one that Ford was sure was mirrored on his own face.

"None of that, now," Fiddleford had said, pointing at Parallel Ford. "You know I don't blame you none for what happened; it was my own fool fault for inventing a gun for erasing memories and then testing it on myself. Besides, if you hadn't dragged me kickin' and screamin' out of the dump, I still wouldn't know who I am, and I never would have made up with Tate. And if you hadn't made me patent all those doodles, I wouldn't be filthy stinkin' rich neither."

The last comment had elicited a small chuckle from Parallel Ford. "Well, I suppose there is that."

"And you," Fiddleford had said, turning in Ford's direction. "Don't you look so glum neither. I'm sure your Fiddleford's not upset with you any more than I am. It ain't in our nature to hold grudges.")

At about two in the afternoon, Fiddleford declared it to be time for lunch, yes for all of us Stanfords. If Fiddleford's tone had been eerily reminiscent of Ford's mother's from when he had been a boy, at least Fiddleford didn't share Ma's objection to bringing work to the table. So as they made their way to the kitchen, Ford continued telling them about an extremely useful device that he had encountered that disassembled matter and turned it into data for storage purposes, something that might prove useful in their efforts to invent teleportation, if they could find a way to make it work for living matter. Dipper, who had already been at the table, scribbling away in the blue journal with a pine tree on the cover that Parallel Ford had made for him, when they arrived, listened avidly to Ford's account, only to get up and leave as soon as Ford finished. He returned not more than five minutes later, though this time he had his sister in tow, and both of them were clamoring for "portal stories." Ford had tried to demur at first, citing the project he was working on with the other two, but then Mabel started chanting "portal stories, portal stories," which her brother joined in on in short order. This was apparently a clarion call for the rest of the family, because it wasn't another minute or two before Stan and Soos made their way into the kitchen and started chanting along, at which point Parallel Ford had laughed and began chanting as well. Fiddleford didn't chant with the rest of them, but he did shoot Ford an amused look and a shrug, so Ford finally gave in. He ended up telling stories late into the night, the others drifting off one by one as it got later and later, until finally it was just him and Dipper, who Ford wound up having to carry to bed at around three-thirty, when the boy fell asleep at the table.

("I'm headed to bed; it's getting late," Parallel Ford had said after Ford had finished his story about the Dimension of the Hats, giving a pointed look to Dipper.

"It's _summer_ , Grunkle Ford," Dipper had said, from which Ford surmised Dipper had just been obliquely told to bed as well.

"I suppose it is. And I'm hardly one to judge, regardless. Alright, but don't exhaust yourself; we don't need you chewing up any more of your shirts."

Dipper had scowled, though it was the scowl of someone who very well knew that the other person was right. "Yeah, okay. Just a few more stories."

"Just a few more," Parallel Ford had agreed, sounding amused. He had then reached up under the front of Dipper's hat and ruffled the boy's hair a bit. "Goodnight Dipper."

Dipper had reached up and grabbed Parallel Ford's hand with both of his and squeezed a little. And odd gesture, but visibly affectionate. "Goodnight Grunkle Ford. Love you."

"I love you too," Parallel Ford had replied, and then he had left.

"Now Grunkle Stanford, tell me more about these sapient hats. How did they even manage to talk?")

It continued like that for the rest of the week. There was always someone running around doing something that he nearly inevitably got pulled into as well. Parallel Ford, Stan, Dipper, and Mabel weren't a large family by any means, even taking into account Mabel's pet pig Waddles and their pet goat – Ford thought it was their pet, at least – Gompers, but they still managed to fill the very large cabin with noise and, for lack of a more precise term, life.

Then there were all the assorted people almost constantly coming and going. There were all the tourists that came to see the Mystery Shack, which seemed a strange mix of genuine and educational information about all the anomalies in Gravity Falls, and a bunch of made up junk. There was Wendy and Soos, the employees at the Mystery Shack, though they seemed to hang around far more often than their work hours required – though with Wendy it was a little hard to tell when she was hanging out off the clock, and when she was skipping out on work to hang out. There was Fiddleford, who despite no longer being Parallel Ford's research assistant, was still collaborating with him on a number of projects, and Tate, Fiddleford's son, had showed up one day too to pick up his father when he'd forgotten about a previous engagement. There were Mabel's friends, Grenda, Candy, and Pacifica, who Ford had already met, and Gideon, a little boy with an inexplicable Southern accent that Mabel doted on like her pet pig, and everyone else seemed to regard with a resigned acceptance. There was the group of teenagers that Ford thought were friends with Wendy, though Dipper was folded into their group easily when he expressed in interest in joining them, and the one boy with the dark hair who looked a little like one of the undead – Roger, maybe? Ford was starting to find it difficult to keep track of all these names – seemed to have a soft spot for Mabel. There was also Soos's grandmother, who came over and made them dinner one evening, and of everyone, she was the only person who seemed the slightest bit perturbed to be confronted with a second Ford, but only then because she was worried as to whether she'd made enough food for everyone. Ford thought there may have been more people than that, even, but they all started to blur together at a certain point.

("Is it always this… busy around here?" Ford had asked Parallel Ford during a rare quiet moment, relatively speaking.

"Things are a bit calmer during the school year when the kids are out all day, especially once tourist season dies down. But as for this time of year, yes it's always like this, more or less," Parallel Ford had replied.

"How do you get any work done at all during the summer, then?" Ford had said.

Parallel Ford had paused for a moment. "Come to think of it, I guess we have been getting pulled into more over these past few days than I usually am."

"Hey genius." Both Ford and Parallel Ford had turned to see Stan watching them from the doorway to the study, with an expression that had struck Ford as being very familiar, though he hadn't been able to place what it meant. "Those kids like you, and they've been trying to keep you too busy to work on your portal gun, because they don't want you to leave. Mabel's idea, I'll bet, but I guess it doesn't matter who came up with it, since they all jumped on board pretty quickly.")

Truthfully, Ford didn't want to leave. He hadn't wanted to leave the last parallel Earth he had visited either, but this was different. That place, where an alternate version of himself had worldwide fame and renown for his research and was running his very own Institute of Oddology represented a cherished dream of Ford's from since before he could remember it seemed. It was also a dream he had given up on a long, long time ago. And maybe some childhood dreams never truly leave you completely – Ford's hand strayed to the breast pocket of his coat where his fingers lightly traced the edges of an old photograph hidden there – but in the end it had been easy to walk away from that one; he'd had a lot of practice at it, after all.

Here was something completely different, something that, had you asked him a week ago, Ford would not have remotely thought to say he wanted. This dimension's Ford still had respect from his academic colleagues, but he's seemed to have given up on the idea of being the person to change the world in exchange for _people_. People who liked him, and cared about him, who wanted to be a part of his life and wanted him to be a part of theirs. It was nothing Ford ever thought that he wanted, and everything he couldn't find it in himself to be willing to walk away from.

But he couldn't stay. Of course he couldn't; even if the people here never treated him like he was a duplicate or redundancy – Ford thought that they had maybe categorized him in their minds as another twin to Parallel Ford and Stan, or one of a set of triplets, he supposed – that didn't change the fact that that was what he was here. And sure, he could probably get used to the bell jingling with every move he made, but that in itself posed a problem. That sort of complacency only increased the risk of him and Parallel Ford someday bumping into each other on accident. Then there was the other thing.

("I don't understand how you were able to just walk away from the fight with Bill," Ford had asked.

Parallel Ford had smiled softly. "Tell me, during your travels did you ever make it to Dimension 52 to see Jheselbraum the Unswerving?"

"Yes," Ford had said, sitting up straighter. "Yes I did. She told me most of what I know about Bill and she also told me that I had-"

"The face of the man who was destined to destroy Bill," Parallel Ford had finished. "Let me ask you another question: how many Stanford Pines do you think there are out there in the multiverse? And Stanley Pines? And Stanford or Stanley Pines with a son with the same face as them? For that matter, how many Filbrick Pines do you think there are? All of them would have the face of the man destined to destroy Bill Cipher, and any one of them could be the one to do it. But my family needed me, specifically. They asked me to stay, so I did.")

So he got up early each morning, before anyone else was awake, and worked on his portal gun. He would get it working again and then leave. He would go back out there and destroy Bill, so that the Stanford Pines this family wanted and needed could stay.

He finally finished deactivating the portal gun's safety mechanism around seven in the morning a week after he arrived. He headed toward the kitchen where he could already hear the sounds of the house's inhabitants eating breakfast – a bit early for them, that was an unusual – the bright chatter feeling incongruent with the heavy steps of his feet.

Dipper looked up and smiled when he entered the room. "Morning, Grunkle Stanford. You're just in time for our crazy rooftop fireworks party."

Ford blinked a few times. He had been so caught up in how he was going to explain that he was leaving that Dipper's declaration took him completely by surprise. "Aren't fireworks supposed to be done at night?" he asked.

"Pshh, yeah if you want the cops to catch you," Mabel said.

And somehow Ford found himself dragged along into this as well, with all five of them squeezed up on the little rooftop ledge, which worked so long as Ford and Parallel Ford stayed on opposite sides. The cops did end up catching them, but Parallel Ford had explained they weren't setting of fireworks, he was conducting an experiment on the aesthetic qualities of different classes of low explosive pyrotechnic devices and Stan had accused them of being lame, and the two police men had obligingly left.

Once they had finished off the fireworks, the kids decided the best way to put out any lingering fires or sparks was to have a water balloon fight, which had turned into a mud fight by the time Wendy had showed up for work. Stan told her that he was leaving the Shack closed for the day so they could have a Family Fun Day instead, and Wendy had shrugged and challenged the kids to a tree climbing competition. Someone, likely Stan or Parallel Ford, must have called Soos at some point, because he showed up in the early afternoon with lunch and FCLORP equipment, though it was unanimously agreed to forgo any of the typical rules associated with FCLORP in favor of a general play-pretend type game. That kept them running around and busy until the early evening, when Stan ordered pizza and they all sat outside on the back porch to eat it, not one of them having gone inside the house for longer than it took to grab a snack or use the restroom all day.

"Alright," Stan said once the pizza was finished and Wendy and Soos had gone back home. "I think it's time for you two little gremlins to hit the hay."

"But it's barely six o'clock," Dipper protested.

"Yeah, and you both have been up early in the morning and until late at night every day this week. You need rest," said Stan.

"But Grunkle Stan we're not tired," Mabel said, yawning hugely around Stan's name.

"Sure you aren't," Stan said sarcastically. "Dipper, your shirt." Dipper spat the shirt he had been absent-mindedly chewing on out of his mouth and glared at it balefully.

"Look, if you kids want to read, or watch some videos on your tablet, that's fine, just get your pajamas on and get in bed first," Parallel Ford told them, and the kids reluctantly agreed to this compromise.

"Actually, Dipper, Mabel could I speak with you for a second before that?" Ford asked.

"Yeah, what's up?" Dipper said.

"I…" Ford began, but looking at their happy expectant faces, he couldn't bring himself to say it. "I just wanted to let you know how much fun I had with you today, all week, actually, and that I consider myself lucky to have had an opportunity to meet you the both of you," he continued instead, well aware of what a coward he was being.

"Aww, we love you too, Grunkle Stanford," Mabel said. She threw her arms around him, and Ford just barely had the presence of mind to hug her back, and Dipper as well when it was his turn.

Ford was vaguely aware of the kids saying goodnight to the other two men, but it wasn't until Stan's sharp call of "Stanford," that Ford was able to fully pay attention again.

"You better not be planning on leaving without telling those kids you're going and giving them a real good-bye," Stan said, glaring at him. Parallel Ford seemed more sympathetic, but equally firm on the matter.

"You're right," Ford admitted. "But I want to wait until morning to tell them. Today was a good day; let's let them have that."

Stan nodded, stretched, and said, "Well I guess I'm pulling an all-nighter to make sure you don't pull a runner after I fall asleep." Ford was a bit indignant at the implications of Stan's statement, though the righteousness of it was a undermined by the fact that a part of Ford had been considering doing just that. "Ford, you want to join me?"

"All night movie marathon?" Parallel Ford suggested.

"Yeah, but no sci-fi movies unless they've got a lot of explosions. Or they're really dumb so I can laugh at you two nerds getting annoyed," Stan said.

"I know what kind of movies you like, knucklehead," Parallel Ford said. "Now you go get some popcorn, and we'll pick out the movie. Better yet, get yourself a tub of ice cream."

"I like the way you think, poindexter," Stan said.

He got up and walked to the kitchen, while Ford and Parallel Ford went to the living room. Parallel Ford turned the TV to the Black and White Period Piece Old Lady Boring Movie Channel, which Ford thought was an odd choice, but Stan didn't complain when he came in a few minutes later, and Ford figured that he would be fine with anything that Parallel Ford liked.

They were about twenty minutes into a rather gripping historical fiction drama, when the portal appeared. It was one that looked familiar to Ford, though he couldn't place where from; it certainly didn't look like the portals that were opened by his portal gun.

"Looks like your ride's here," Stan observed, and that's when it hit Ford. Of course this portal didn't look anything like the ones made by the portal gun he had picked up in Dimension 3000-and-5; this gateway was the one created by _his_ portal, the one he had built himself back in his home dimension.

Parallel Ford jumped up. "I nearly forgot; there's something I've been meaning to give you before you leave. Wait right here while I get it. Unless of course the portal starts to destabilize and you have to go through to avoid missing it altogether, but barring that, I'll be right back," he said, and then he rushed down the hallway to the study.

"Guess I won't have the opportunity to give the kids a proper good-bye after all," Ford observed.

"Don't worry about it. This is a completely different situation," Stan said. "You're going home, after all. The kids will be happy for you."

There was a long, awkward silence after that. Ford hadn't been alone with Stan much, or at all really, since he'd come to this dimension. Truth be told, he had been avoiding it. His relationship with his brother was complicated, and having a parallel version of him around that wasn't really him, was only making it seem more complicated.

"Hey, there is something I wanted to say to you before you go," Stan said a little uncertainly. "I know you're still pretty hacked off at your brother. Heck, you've been acting like you're mad at me, and I didn't even do anything to you, technically."

"I'm sorry," Ford began, but Stan waved him off.

"It doesn't bother me. I mean, it goes both ways, doesn't it? I'm not really your brother and you're not really mine. And me and Ford have been square for years now, so I'm not going to get upset just because you're acting kind of like a jerk," Stan said.

" _Ford and I_ have been square," Ford corrected. "Grammar."

Stan laughed a little and shook his head. "You're just a ridiculous as Ford is, you know that? What I'm trying to say is: I don't care, but that guy on the other side of that," Stan said, using his thumb to point at the portal, "he cares a lot. And I know you want an apology from him for screwing up, and I'm not going to say you don't deserve one or ten for all the stupid stuff he's pulled. But he's been working to bring you back for, what thirty years now? Yeesh, that's a long time. So once you finally show up, he's going to be too happy he's got you back to be thinking about apologizing. But he is sorry, and if you give him a chance to, or you know, maybe remind him, he'll apologize. Just cut him a little slack. And maybe thank him too."

"Thank him?" Ford said incredulously. "Even if he is sorry for what he did thirty years ago, reopening that portal-"

"Extremely dangerous, could cause the end of the world as we know it, blah, blah, blah. I know Stanford. If you don't want to thank him for saving you, that's fine, but like I said, he's dedicated thirty years of his life to trying to bring you back home; there's gotta be something in all that you can thank him for. He just wants to know that his brother thinks he's done at least one worthwhile thing in his life.

"Or maybe not, what do I know?" Stan said, his sudden tone of slightly forced levity breaking the tension. "Just think about it, will ya?"

"I've found it," Parallel Ford declared triumphantly. He paused in the doorway, looking at the pair of them, and then turned to Stan with his eyebrows raised. Stan gave a sort of half-shrug, and then Parallel Ford smiled. It was odd, watching the both of them communicate silently and without words. Odd, how often Ford had forgotten and convinced himself that he worked best alone, when he'd always been happier as part of a team.

"Here you are, the Dimensional Rift Sealer. It… well, I guess the name's pretty self-explanatory, isn't it? I don't know if you'll need it or not, but just in case," Parallel Ford said, offering Ford the device.

"Give me that," Stan snapped, snatching it from Parallel Ford before slapping it down in Ford's hand with a force that sent the bells on his wrist jangling madly. "You two knuckleheads want us to trip at the finish line? The world's dumbest geniuses, the pair of you."

"I wasn't going to touch him," Parallel Ford objected, then he deflated a little. "Thank you, Stanley."

"Yes thank you. Both of you, for everything," Ford said. "And now I suppose it's time for me to leave. To go home." Ford said the word slowly, testing the shape of it in his mouth, and found he liked it better than he remembered.

"Goodbye," Stan said.

"Goodbye," Parallel Ford echoed. "And remember, the people waiting for you on the other side of the portal, they need you, Stanford."

Ford held one hand up in acknowledgment, but he didn't look away from the portal. One, two steps to the edge, and then one more step through. Through to home.

The place on the other side of the portal was unmistakably his basement lab, looking just as he remembered it. Aside from the now completely destroyed portal that is. And there approaching him from amidst the wreckage, looking either very different from when Ford had last seen him, or nearly just the same, depending on your perspective, was Stanley.

Ford thought that if Stanley had seemed apologetic or worried, then it would have been easier for Ford to look past the insanely risky stunt Stanley had just pulled, and the fact that Stanley had been the one to push Ford into the portal in the first place. The latter had been an accident, after all, not a deliberate betrayal like the last time Stanley had ruined his life – and Ford was past that last time because they had both been stupid kids when it happened and now he was a full grown man in his late fifties and petty childhood grudges were beneath him. They were. But Stanley didn't look apologetic or worried, he looked proud of himself. Proud, as though he didn't care that all he'd done was fix his own mistake by making a catastrophically larger one. Ford felt his fingers curl into a fist, and he clenched it tight.

And then, for the moment at least, he let it go.

Because Stanley also looked immensely happy to see Ford. Happy enough that Ford could believe that ocean of apologetic feelings were waiting underneath for after this initial reunion to come out and be sorted out along with all the other complicated feelings they both had. So Ford approached Stanley, _his_ brother, his _family_ , and met him in a hug.

Despite the fact that Stanley had been the one coming in for a hug in the first place, he seemed almost surprised by it, but after a moment he was holding on to Ford as tightly as Ford was holding on to him. "I'm so glad you're back."

"And I'm… still incredibly angry with you," Ford said, grabbing Stanley by the shoulders so he could pull away and look him in the eye. "Do you have any idea how much danger you put everyone in by restarting the portal?" Ford took a deep breath, and let it out. "But I am glad to be home again. Thank you for… for needing me."

Ford wasn't sure if Stanley took that in the way he meant it, but he supposed it didn't matter exactly how Stanley took it, since he smiled in response, and brought a hand up to wipe underneath one eye, which Ford tactfully pretended not to notice. "This guy. You're my brother knucklehead; of course I need you."

"Hey. Hi, Mabel here. Quick question: what the heck is going on here?"

Oh. Ford knew, given how similar their universes were before he and Parallel Ford had each fallen into their respective portals, that the odds were highly in favor of this outcome. Despite that, he hadn't allowed himself to get his hopes up, or even think about it really. He knew Stanley would be there, and he could make that be enough. But there they were, Mabel and Dipper and even Soos, staring at him and looking… very confused, actually, but they could work on that.

"Greetings," Ford said, walking over to the children – and Soos, though in a lot of ways, that amounted to the same thing really – and kneeling down to be on Mabel and Dipper's level. "I'm Stan's twin brother, which makes me your Great Uncle, or Grunkle, if you prefer, Ford. I fell through the portal that used to be over there a very long time ago, and it's only just now that Stan's been able to reactivate it and bring me back. Something that he shouldn't have done, given all the warnings I left," Ford said, giving Stan a pointed look, though Stan appeared unimpressed, "but I'm here now. And I'm pleased, and consider myself very, very lucky to meet all of you."

* * *

AN: ... And then Dipper throws up. Too much excitement for the poor kid. The sequel depicting the events that follow can be found at "The Trouble Might Drag You Down" (story ID: 12173330).

(Also, oh my god, how did this end up so long? Brain, what are you even doing to me right now?)


	14. If I Had a Million Dollars

Dipper finally made his way down to the kitchen for breakfast at about ten forty-five that morning, still feeling a bit bleary-eyed. Mabel was already there eating a bowl of cereal, fully dressed in a sweater and a pair of cut-offs, with her make-up done, her hair brushed and styled, and just generally looking far too chipper for someone who had still been going strong when Dipper had crawled up to bed at four thirty the night, or technically the morning, before. Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford were milling about the kitchen as well, which was a little weird. They had both gone to bed at a reasonable time last night, on the grounds that the party didn't need any adult supervision, since all the attendees were technically adults. That is, all of them except Gideon, who had been invited due to the momentousness of the occasion, despite not being fully back into Mabel's good graces after his increasingly annoying attempts to woo her over the past year. And Dipper knew that the noise couldn't have kept them up, because he and Mabel had been tasked with dragging their grunkles' mattresses down to the lower lab yesterday so it wouldn't. Not that there was any reason why they couldn't be hanging out in the kitchen right now – the Mystery Shack wasn't opening until one that day, to give plenty of time to make sure everything was in order after the party, besides which Grunkle Stan had been sort of semi-retired ever since he'd named Soos manager and Soos had immediately turned around and named Melody co-manager, and Grunkle Ford had always worked on his own schedule – but still, it was weird.

"Good morning," Dipper said, pouring himself a bowl of cereal as well.

Grunkle Ford and Grunkle Stan returned his greeting, and Mabel gave an enthusiastic, "Good morning, Sleeping Beauty!"

"I'm not a princess," Dipper said, taking the open chair between Mabel and Grunkle Ford.

"I think you'd make a great princess," Mabel assured him. "Dare I say, a pretty, pretty princess?"

"Mabel, no. That game is for five year old girls. I don't even know why you still have it."

"Pfff," Mabel said, poking him in the arm. "You're just jealous because I'm so much better at it than you are."

"It is literally one hundred percent based on luck. You can't be better at a game that requires no skill to play," Dipper objected.

"Says you," retorted Mabel.

"As much as I hate to break up this conversation between two mature adults, I've got something for the both of you," Grunkle Stan said, sitting down at the table as well. He pulled a pair of manila envelopes out of somewhere – Dipper had learned a very long time ago not to ask where, exactly – and passed one each to Dipper and Mabel.

"You do know our eighteenth birthday was yesterday, right?" Dipper said, accepting the envelope.

"Believe me, I noticed," Grunkle Stan said.

"These gifts are a bit… special," Grunkle Ford explained. "We wanted to give them to you separate from everything else."

"Why does it say 'From Mom and Dad' on it?" Mabel asked. "Is this your way of telling us that one of you is actually our grauntie? Ooooo do I get to give you a make-over?"

"No, we're both perfectly happy as grunkles, thank you. Or, I am at least," Grunkle Ford said, turning to look at Grunkle Stan.

"I'm good, thanks," Grunkle Stan said.

"Can I give you both make-overs anyway? I promise I definitely, probably, maybe won't make you look like a tiger this time," said Mabel.

"That's what you said the last two times," Grunkle Ford pointed out.

"Maybe I did, but I can't help it if tiger is a good look for you two," Mabel said.

"Well, I think it looks fantastic, pumpkin," Grunkle Stan said.

"You would," Dipper and Grunkle Ford said at almost exactly the same time and the two of them smiled at each other.

"Alright, that's enough outta the peanut gallery," Grunkle Stan said. "Anyway, the reason the envelopes say they're from your mom and dad is because they're something that your real mom and dad left you when they died."

Intrigued now, Dipper pulled open the envelope, only to be confronted with a very official looking piece of paper that read "Change Registration from Custodian to Single" on the top and had Grunkle Stan's forged "Stanford Pines" signature on it. "What is this?"

Grunkle Stan stood up from his chair a bit so he could lean over and look at the paperwork that Mabel was holding and regarding with equal confusion. "Oh, sorry, I meant to put that part at the back. That's the form so you can get the accounts put under your name instead of my name."

"You mean _my_ name," Grunkle Ford said mildly.

"Yeah, well the investment guy that Shermie hired still thinks I'm you, so…"

"Wait a second, accounts, investment guy; are you saying our parents left us money?" Dipper asked.

"More or less," Grunkle Stan said. "Apparently when you two little niblets were born, they went out and did the responsible parent thing and got life insurance. Then when they both died all that money went to the two of you, though I've been the one watching it for you both while you were still minors. Probably they meant it to be to help raise you kids, but me and Ford managed just fine on our own, so I dipped into it a couple a' times, but mostly just left it and let it grow."

"And by that he means he refused to touch so much as a penny of it except for when I convinced him it was for a good investment for the both of you and basically forced him," Grunkle Ford said in a tone of fond amusement. "Your attic came out of that money, for example."

The attic, or the remodeling of the attic rather, had been Dipper and Mabel's twelfth birthday gift. About three months before that, Fiddleford had moved out into a new house of his own where he could live with his son Tate. That meant that there had then been two open bedrooms on the second floor, and it was decided that it was time that Dipper and Mabel each had their own room. That left the attic empty, and Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford had declared that it was going to be belatedly undergoing the same remodeling that the rest of the house had two years prior, and that the space was temporarily off-limits to the younger twins for safety reasons.

Then really early in the morning on Dipper and Mabel's twelfth birthday – apparently the room had been done for over a week and their grunkles were too excited to wait any longer – the two of them were woken up and led upstairs to see the new attic. The wall separating their old bedroom from the rest of the attic had been taken out, opening the whole thing up to one wide space that had then been given the illusion of different sections by the groupings of furniture. There was the long low table surrounded by piles of cushions and pillows and placed next to a bookshelf filled with all their various board and card games. There were the bookshelves with actual books on them, ensconced next to two puffy arm chairs with a little table and reading lamp in between. The old TV from downstairs that had been replaced earlier that year had been brought up, along with all their video games and movies. But the best part was along the back wall. There were two desks in either corner, each with a new laptop on top of it. The desk on the left side of the room was heavy and solid looking, and was filled to the brim with anything and everything Dipper could possibly need to study anomalies. The wall next to it was corkboard floor to ceiling for about three feet, and there were two rolling whiteboards and a rolling corkboard as well. The right corner of the room had a desk that looked much airier in it, despite having about the same amount of storage space as the other. This desk, however, was filled with all kinds of crafting supplies, and next to it was an easel and a pile of yarn so big a person could dive into it. Which, come to think of it, was exactly what Mabel did. And then the whole back wall was painted with whiteboard paint, and their grunkles had written on it in large letters "Happy Birthday, Dipper and Mabel!"

It had been, and still was, the most amazing thing Dipper had ever seen. It never occurred to him before to wonder how very much something like that must have cost to do up. And if that had been paid out of these accounts and there was still money left, then how much was in there?

Dipper was flipping through the paperwork looking for a statement when another thought occurred to him: Grunkle Stan had said he "dipped into" the accounts a couple of times. The wording would imply that however much he took out was small relative to the size of the account as a whole. _How much was in there?_

"Holy Jumanji, that's a lot of zeros!" Mabel exclaimed. Assuming that Mabel was looking at the same number he was, there was technically only one zero in it, right after the one right at the beginning. But there were also two commas and seven digits before the decimal place, so Dipper couldn't disagree with the sentiment. "This is all our money to do whatever we want with?"

"It's your money," Grunkle Stan confirmed. "I feel like this is where a responsible parent would tell you to be smart with it. But I'm an uncle, so yeah, do whatever you want with it. Go nuts."

"But Grunkle Stan, this is over a million dollars!" Dipper had spent the last year so stressed about college, not just about getting in, but how he was going to afford it. He applied for scholarships and financial aid and loans and all the while Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford kept telling him not to worry about it, that it would be taken care of. Dipper had assumed they meant they were willing to help him pay for it, which was really nice of them, but it wasn't exactly a cheap college he was going to and he didn't want to put that on them. But now Dipper could pay for college out-of-pocket all the way through getting a Ph.D. if he wanted to and still have money left over. Because now Dipper had _over a million dollars._

"Yeah, well when I was eighteen Pa kicked me out of the house-"

"He kicked you out of the house when you were seventeen," Grunkle Ford corrected, his voice low, even, and dangerous. Grunkle Ford didn't like talking or thinking about when Grunkle Stan got kicked out, and as the years passed he only got more and more upset by it.

Grunkle Stan leaned over and cuffed Grunkle Ford on the back of the head. "You're ruining my parallels here, Sixer." Because the more and more upset Grunkle Ford got over the whole thing, the less and less it seemed to bother Grunkle Stan. "I was roughly you two's age when Pa kicked me out of the house and told me not to come back until I made millions. I thought we'd keep the tradition going here, but flip the script on it a little bit."

"It's not fair!" Mabel suddenly exploded. "Your dad was such a poop. It's not fair that you had to have such an awful dad while Dipper and I have the two best dads in the whole world, and it turns out our birth parents were totally awesome and looking out for us too."

"And Grandpa Shermie," Dipper added.

"And Grandpa Shermie! How come we get to be so lucky?"

"Hey, the way I see it, all of us are pretty lucky," Grunkle Stan said.

"You are such a sap," Grunkle Ford commented.

Grunkle Stan smacked him on the back of the head again. "I can keep this up all day, Ford," he said, and Grunkle Ford smiled at him unapologetically.

"You know what I'm gonna do?" Mabel said. "Next time one of those time travel guys shows up, I'm going to steal their time machine, go back in time, and punch your dad right in his stupid face. Then I'm going to steal the little Mystery Twins Classic and raise them as my own."

"That's ahhh… a lovely thought sweetheart, but probably not one you should follow through on," Grunkle Ford said.

"Yeah, we don't really need another reason for Time Baby to be mad at us," said Dipper.

"Fiiiinnne," Mabel said. "But I would do it! I would totally do it, and I would knit you both so many sweaters."

"Literally half our closets are sweaters that you've knit for us," Grunkle Stan said.

"Yeah, but those are grumpy old man sweaters. These would be adorable tiny twins sweaters. I can picture them now: bright red, with a white circle on the front and inside the circles it would read 'Stan 1' and 'Stan 2.'"

Dipper felt his eyes go wide as he turned to look at his sister. "Do it. Screw Time Baby, do it and take as many pictures as you possibly can." Mabel's wide smile met Dipper's evil grin and they said simultaneously "Blackmail!" "Scrapbook-ortunity!" and high-fived.

"Yeesh, you take a pair of kids in, raise them for thirteen years, and then give them a million dollars, and this is the thanks you get," Grunkle Stan said.

Mabel lunged across the table, knocking her bowl of cereal to the ground in the process – luckily the bowl was made of some kind of plastic, so it didn't break, but she did splatter milk everywhere – and caught Grunkle Stan up in a tight hug. "Thank you so much, Grunkle Stan!"

Dipper, being a normal person, actually got up out of his chair and walked over to Grunkle Ford. "Thank you," he said, wrapping his grunkle up in a hug.

"Of course," Grunkle Ford said. He placed his hands on either of Dipper's shoulders and looked him in the eye. "You are going to change the world one of these days, my boy. If that's what you want to do. We didn't want something as petty as money to be what stood in your way."

Dipper wasn't all that great at using words to express how he was feeling – neither of them were; that was really Mabel's department. So he grabbed Grunkle Ford in another hug, and hoped he understood.

"My turn!" Mabel had crawled across the table, tipping over the salt shaker and knocking the lid off the butter dish on her way, and was now kneeling on the table next to them with her arms open for a hug. So Dipper let go of Grunkle Ford and made his way around to Grunkle Stan.

"Now I know you're too smart a kid to need me to tell you to be smart with this money," Grunkle Stan said after Dipper had hugged him. "But have some fun with it too, alright? Go buy yourself one of your nerd games, or a car or something, I don't know."

Dipper felt a smile overtake his face as an idea occurred to him. "I" he announced loudly for the whole room to hear, "am going to buy you and Grunkle Ford a boat."

"What?" Mabel turned around and sat down on the table facing Dipper, heedless of the fact that her foot was now in the butter. "No fair, Dipper, I was going to buy them a boat."

"Well I already called it," Dipper said. "You snooze, you lose."

Mabel scowled at him for a moment, before giving a tentative smile. "Halfsies?" she suggested, holding one hand up in the air.

Dipper slapped his hand against hers to seal the deal. "Halfsies."


	15. Elementary Relativity

Stan didn't know what the heck was going on. It had been just a normal day, he and Ford were down in the pawn shop helping to straighten up the merchandise for Pa before they were allowed to go out and play for the day, when a lady walked in. She was pretty young looking, maybe not even an adult at all, but an old teenager, had long brown hair practically to her waist, a canvas bag hanging over her shoulder and was wearing jean shorts and a sweater – who even wore a sweater in the middle of summer? – covered in a pattern of little clocks and red phone booths. When Stan first spotted her, he thought for sure that she was one of those people who came in the shop to look at all the weirdest things they had out for sale and ended up taking home some piece of junk that they loved for whatever reason. But she didn't browse the shelves at all, instead heading straight up to Pa behind the counter. Then as Pa was greeting her, she pulled back her arm and punched him, right in the face. Pa went down like a sack of bricks.

"Whoa," the lady said, leaning over the counter to look at him. "I knocked him unconscious. And I think I broke his nose too. High-five Mabel!" There was a slapping sound, like she was clapping her hands together to high-five herself.

So now there was a crazy lady in the shop who had just punched their dad unconscious and who was standing between them and both the exits. They could maybe hide behind the shelf here and hope she left before she saw them, but on the other hand, _she had just punched their dad unconscious_ , and maybe Pa was kind of a jerk sometimes, but that didn't mean Stan was going to let people go around punching him for no reason.

"What do you think you're doing?" Stan demanded.

"What are _you_ doing, Stan?" Ford hissed, clearly not happy with Stan's plan to confront the crazy lady, even as he came to stand next to Stan in support.

The crazy lady whipped around to look at them. Her eyes went wide and she pressed her hands to her mouth before letting out a very loud and high-pitched squeal. "Look at the two of you!" She had pulled her hands away from her mouth just far enough to allow herself to speak, and now began bouncing on the balls of her feet in delight. "You're so cute and little, and I just want to take you home with me. No, bad Mabel. You promised no stealing the small children. The super adorable small children." She squealed again.

"You didn't answer my question," Stan said, trying to sound tough when he as mostly just feeling really, really confused.

"Right. Hi, I'm Mabel and I've come from the future to punch your dad in the face because he's a total poop," she said. Definitely crazy.

"From the future? You're saying you're a time traveler?" Ford asked, sounding excited and disbelieving at the same time.

Which yeah, Stan got that the idea of time travel was pretty cool, and right up Ford's nerdy alley, but "Time travel isn't real."

The crazy lady tsk'd at him. "You're going to have to learn to trust me Stan." How did she know his name? Maybe she had heard Ford whisper it a minute ago. "And you will eventually. But for now I guess I'll just have to prove it to you." She grabbed the thing of tape measure that was hooked to one of her belt loops. "I'll see you in-"

The crazy lady disappeared. "Where did she go?" Stan said.

"Maybe she was telling the truth? And she really did just travel through time?" Ford suggested.

"But time travel isn't real. Right?" Stan said, suddenly feeling a lot less sure than he had a minute ago.

"-in the future," Mabel said, reappearing and picking up her sentence right from where' she'd left off like no time had passed. For her, maybe it hadn't. "That was only a quick ten second hop to the future, just to show you I can totally travel through time."

"Holy…"

"I can't believe time travel is real!" Ford said, bursting with excitement. "Does this mean you're from the future? The distant future? What's it like? Are those X-7 Dimensionizers on your sweater? Does Inspector Spacetime still exist in the future? Is that show based on real time travelers? Is our dad some kind of key point that makes something bad happen in the future? Did you render him unconscious to keep it from happening?"

"Ford, you gotta breathe," Stan reminded him.

Mabel grinned at them and began ticking off answers on her fingers. "Yes; no, but I've been there; mostly pretty grey; yes; yes; probably not; yes; and no."

"Wait," Stan said, running back through Ford's list of questions in his head, "Are you saying Pa messes up the future, but that's not why you punched him?" Stan asked.

"Nope," Mabel said, popping the p. "You see, if you travel back in time to change the past, there's a huge chance of causing a paradox. At least, unless you have a time wish, but Dipper – that's my twin brother – and I aren't allowed to compete in Globnar any more after what happened the last time. Which is a major overreaction on their parts if you ask me; I mean, two-thirds of that stadium was still standing afterwards. Well, half of it anyway. So I can't come back and try to stop your dad from doing the awful thing he ends up doing. But there's nothing saying I can't punch him for being a massive jerk."

"What does he do?" Stan asked. Whatever it was, it must be pretty bad for someone to come time traveling back just to punch him. Probably even bad enough that he actually possibly deserved it.

Mabel's smile faltered. "I don't think I'm allowed to tell you that. But when it happens I want you to remember that it's wrong and he's wrong okay? Promise me you'll both remember that."

Stan and Ford looked at each other. Even if she was a time traveler, Mabel was still weird. "Sure," Stan agreed.

"Okay," Ford echoed. "Hey Mabel, do you think you could take us on a trip to see the future. Just a quick one?"

"Or to the past? I want to see some dinosaurs," Stan added.

"Sure can!" Mabel agreed. "As long as we have time for it."

Stan groaned, because he knew exactly what was coming. "But that doesn't make any sense," Ford protested. Yep, here they go again. "You're a time traveler. You can't run out of time. You literally have all the time right at your fingertips."

"Only if you assume the other guys don't have time travel too," Mabel countered. "So really, I only have as long as it takes for the time cops to figure out where I am."

"You're some kind of time criminal?" Stan asked. That made her so much more awesome.

"I prefer loveable time rogue. It's got the word 'loveable' in it," Mabel said.

"Don't you mean 'as long as it takes for the time cops to figure out _when_ you are?'" Ford said. "Although, once they figure out when you traveled back to, wouldn't they just travel to the exact time that you arrived? Or even a little bit before? But if that was the case, why wouldn't they already be here?"

"Whoa, I know you got a big ol' brain in there Ford, but don't hurt yourself," Mabel said. And how did she know Ford's name? Maybe Stan had said it earlier? "You're right that they can track me to exactly when I arrived, but like I said, they don't know _where_ I am yet. They weren't expecting to hop a flight from Oregon to New Jersey before I time traveled. But like I was saying, I came back to 1960-something to do two things. One, punch your dad in the face; that's a big check. And two, get a picture of the two of you wearing these." Mabel reached into her bag and pulled out what looked like a pair of sweaters.

"Why do you want a picture of us?" Stan asked suspiciously.

"For my scrapbook, silly!" Mabel replied. "Now let's see… Ford you're the oldest – high six for alpha twins – so this top one's for you." Ford, looking both confused and pleased, gave her the requested high six before taking the top sweater off the pile. "And this one's yours, Stan."

Stan took the sweater and unfolded it, while at the back of his mind he was trying to figure out how Mabel knew them in the future. Because she had to know them, that's the only way she could know about the high six, because that was Stan and Ford's thing.

The sweater, when Stan finished unfolding it, turned out to be an eye-searing shade of bright red. On the front of it was a large stark white circle, and inside the circle read in bold black letters "STAN 2." He assumed that Ford's must say "STAN 1" on it. "This… is the greatest thing I've ever seen!" Stan said, rushing to pull it on.

"It's, ah, definitely something," Ford said.

"Thanks! I knitted them myself," Mabel said.

"Really? Did you use some kind of cool, futuristic fabric?" Ford asked.

"Maybe?" Mabel said. "When was the cotton gin invented, like the seventies?"

"The modern cotton gin was invented in the late seventeen hundreds, and cotton as a fabric has been around for centuries," Ford corrected.

"Oh, well in that case, no I did not use a futuristic fabric. Now put on your sweater so I can take a picture," she said, pulling a rectangular thing covered in rhinestones out of her pocket and waving it around. "The sooner we get this picture taken the sooner we can start our trip across time and space."

Ford still looked like he didn't understand the awesomeness of these sweaters, but he was way too smart to keep complaining about it when time travel adventures were on the line. So he pulled it on and Mabel made them pose together while she took pictures with her future thingy.

"So that's what cameras look like in the future?" Ford asked once she was done.

"Nah, this isn't a camera; it's my phone," Mabel answered. "But it does have a camera in it. And a music player and a computer and a whole lot of things."

Stan's eyes went wide. She fit all that in that tiny thing? "Can we go to the future first?"

"Sure thing!" Mabel said, grabbing her tape measure.

Suddenly there was a bright flash of light from out front, and a deep booming voice called, "Mabel Pines!"

"Rats, it's the fuzz," Mabel said, snapping her fingers and making a sour expression. She gave Stan and Ford an apologetic look. "Sorry guys, I guess we aren't going to get to go on a time travel adventure after all. Well, I better go turn myself over to Time Baby."

Stan waited until Mabel was outside to turn to Ford and ask, "Did that guy just call her Mabel _Pines_?"

"Do you think she's related to us? It would explain why she wanted pictures of us in these sweaters," Ford said.

"Yeah, maybe," Stan agreed. "… Do you want to go see what a time baby is?"

The two of them raced outside, where they were confronted with the sight of Mabel with her arms crossed as she stared up at a giant baby. Like the size of a house giant, though part of that might have been because he was sitting in a hovering metal baby chair thing. He also had a glowing hourglass symbol on his forehead; Stan figured that was probably what made him a _time_ baby.

"Well, somebody's being a Mr. Crankypants," Mabel was saying. "Did you not have your nap this morning?"

"I could vaporize you where you stand," Time Baby boomed menacingly. Well, as menacing as he could be while he was trying to stick his foot in his mouth.

"You could," Mabel agreed, looking very unworried for someone who just had a freakishly giant baby threaten to blow her up. "But if you used your laser vision and turned me into a pile of dust, then what would happen to these num-nums?" Mabel reached into her bag and pulled out a big plastic bag full of cookies.

"Do not think you can bribe me," Time Baby said, but his hands were already making grabby motions at the bag.

"It's not a bribe," Mabel said, handing the opened bag of cookies over. Time Baby immediately dumped the whole thing into his mouth, getting crumbs and a couple whole cookies everywhere. "I already accomplished the two things I wanted to in the past: punching Filbrick in the face, and getting pictures of Stan and Ford in their sweaters. I'm totally good to go home now."

"Very well. I will let you off with a warning this time," Time Baby said. "But only because I am a benevolent time dictator. Not because of the cookies."

"Of course," Mabel agreed. "Okay, let me just say good-bye and then we can be on our way."

"Not so fast," Time Baby said. "I too had two objectives in coming here. The first to retrieve you, but the second was to wipe the memories of your visit from the minds of Stanley and Stanford Pines."

"What?!" Stan, Ford, and Mabel objected, all at almost the exact same time.

"You can't do that! Can he?" Stan asked, looking at Mabel.

"Well, he definitely has actual memory wipes that aren't baby wipes," Mabel answered. "But morally it's wrong."

"I am well aware of your family's objection to memory erasure. But I am not some bumbling human inventor-"

"Hey!" Mabel protested, but Time Baby continued right over her.

"And furthermore, erasing their memory is _necessary_. You cannot comprehend the damage done to the timeline by the two of them finding out about time travel this young."

"Oh," Mabel said, looking back at them. More at Ford than him, Stan thought, and wouldn't it be just like Ford, that nerd, to start trying to invent time travel after this. "I didn't accidentally erase myself from existence did I?"

"Not this time," Time Baby said. "But your family in the form that you know it will no longer exist if these two are allowed to retain their memories."

"Alright," Mabel half-sighed. "I'll handle this." She turned around and knelt down on the ground in front of Stan and Ford.

"Are you going to make us let him erase our memories?" Ford asked.

"The way I see it we got three options. We can let him erase your memories. We can try and fight him, but he'll win and erase your memories anyway. Or we can run, and he'll eventually catch us and erase your memories anyway," Mabel said.

"So you're saying we ain't even got a chance?" Stan asked.

"Hey, we're Pines, we always have a chance. Just not a very good one right now. And I'll be honest, I love my family just the way they are; I don't want to lose them. But they're your memories, so it's your call. Whatever you guys want to do, I'm with you," Mabel said. And she seemed like she really did _mean_ it. Ma and Pa, especially Pa, would never let Stan and Ford make a decision this big. They'd just tell them what to do and expect them to do it without asking questions.

"He's just going to erase the memory of you showing up, right? He's not going to erase our whole brains or nothing, right?" said Stan.

"If I thought he was going to be erasing your whole minds, then we'd definitely be making a break for it," Mabel said. Time Baby cleared his throat warningly but Mabel was uncowed. "Hey, that means I have faith in you to not be a bigger jerk then you have to be. It's a _compliment_."

"And we can get our memories back later, right?" Ford said. "Time Baby said it damages the timeline if we know about time travel now, but you can remind us when we're older."

"I'll definitely make sure you'll remember. I've dealt with way worse cases of memory erasure than this. Plus I've got photographic evidence of the two of you in the sweaters I made you. Piece of cake," Mabel assured them.

"If you gave them those sweaters then we cannot leave them here," Time Baby said.

"What? Why not?" Stan asked. He _liked_ this sweater.

"Such a blatant reminder of Mabel's visit would interfere with the memory wipes effectiveness," said Time Baby. Oh. Yeah, Stan guessed that made sense.

"So what'll it be, dudes?" Mabel asked.

Stan and Ford looked at each other and then nodded. "He can erase our memory," Stan said, while Ford pulled off his sweater.

Mabel took both their sweaters and carefully folded them and put them back in her bag. "Thanks. And I want you both to remember something. Not up here, but in here," she said, pointing first at her head and then her chest. "No matter how bad things get, it's all going to be okay in the end. Heck, it's all going to be great in the end! So if it's not okay, then it's not the end. You got that?"

"Got it," Stan and Ford said.

"Good. Now give me hug goodbye because I love you," Mabel said, holding her arms open. It was a little weird because they didn't really know her, but they gave her a hug anyway. She was probably crazy, but also pretty awesome.

"Before you go, can you tell us who you are and how you know us?" Ford asked.

"Well duh, knuckleheads," Mabel said as she backed up to stand by Time Baby. "I'm your family."

* * *

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon," Stan chanted softly under his breath. It had to work this time, it _had_ to. "C'mon you stupid piece of…"Stan flipped the final switch. Nothing happened. Not even a little spark like something was trying to happen and couldn't. Just nothing.

Stan gave a wordless scream of frustration and chucked Ford's stupid book across the room. He shouldn't even be down here right now. He should be upstairs figuring out the arrangements for Shermie's funeral. Because Shermie was dead. Shermie was dead, Ma was dead, Pa was dead, and Ford had been gone for over twenty years and he was probably dead too. It was just stupid, talentless, screw-up Stanley left, all alone. What was the point of even trying to fix this machine up anymore? It's not like he was ever going to fix it. It's not like Ford would be coming back even if he did. What was even the point of anything at all anymore?

 _It's all going to be okay in the end._

Stan must have heard hundreds, even thousands, of cheesy quotes and sayings like that in his life. He'd known some guys back in his days on the road that collected them like treasures, like they proved all the junk that the world put them through meant something. Stan hated the whole thing, just like he hated all those stupid sayings. Except for maybe that one. For some reason that particular saying had stuck with him through the years. He didn't remember where he'd first heard it anymore, but somehow it kept popping up from somewhere inside him time after time on his ugliest days.

"It's not okay," Stan said, but the words that were meant to be loud and defiant got swallowed up by the open room until they sounded as small and worthless as he felt.

Stan sighed heavily, then went to go pick up his brother's journal. "So I guess that means this isn't the end."


	16. You're the Worst

**September 2005**

Dipper stood next to his sister and glared at Pacifica, trying to look how Grunkle Stan did when he got bad customers. Pacifica glared back at them, except instead of angry she looked like a snob.

Today was his and Mabel's first day in first grade and first day at their new school and they had been really excited to go. Because even though they had already made a lot of friends in Gravity Falls, most of them were grown-ups or big kids except for Wendy's little brothers Kevin, who was the same age as Dipper and Mabel, and Gus, who was just a little baby. But Dipper and Mabel didn't play with Wendy's brothers much, only two or three times, so they didn't really count and Dipper and Mabel had been really excited to make friends at school.

They were in the same class, but their teacher Mr. Johnson said that they should sit on different sides of the room so they could meet all the new kids instead of only playing with each other. At recess Dipper went to talk to Mabel and Mabel said that the girl who sat next to her in class was named Pacifica and she was really cool and that they were friends now. But then at lunch Dipper went to go find Mabel again and he found her talking to Pacifica and Pacifica was making her cry. Mabel was only crying a little bit, but Mabel already cried a lot a lot this year because of when Grandpa Shermie died, so Dipper didn't think she should have to cry any more even a little bit.

Dipper kept glaring at Pacifica and she kept glaring back until Mabel sniffed and said, "But I don't understand why you're being so mean. You said we were friends."

"We are friends. That means you have to do whatever I tell you to. It's not my fault you won't," Pacifica said.

"That's not what friends do. Friends both listen to each other and they be nice to each other," Mabel said.

"Yeah, you're not a friend. You're… you're the worst!" Dipper said.

"Well you're a nerd and your sister is a freak and we're not friends anymore," Pacifica said, and then she turned around and walked away.

"Why was she being so mean? I just wanted to be friends with her," Mabel said.

"Some people are just mean, I think. Like Aunt Karen," Dipper said. Mabel made a face because Mabel always thought everyone was nice deep down inside. But Dipper didn't want to fight with Mabel right now, so instead he pointed and said, "That girl over there sits next to me in class. Her name is Candy and I think she's nice; let's go ask her and her friend if we can play hopscotch with them." Dipper didn't like hopscotch, but Mabel did and Dipper liked Mabel, so he was okay with playing it sometimes.

While Mabel said hi to Candy and her friend who was named Grenda, Dipper looked back at Pacifica. She had found two other girls and she was probably bossing them around and being mean to them now. Pacifica looked over at Dipper again, and he glared at her one more time so she'd know he didn't forgive her for making Mabel cry. Dipper didn't care what Mabel thought, he was sure Pacifica was just mean.

 **September 2008**

As they got back to the Mystery Shack, Pacifica was waiting for someone to tell her that it was time for her to go home now, since they were done with their trip. Pacifica had been surprised she even got invited at all, since she and Mabel weren't really friends, they were just mini golf rivals. But Mabel had started calling them best rivals lately, which Pacifica guessed was some kind of commoner thing and maybe it meant rivals that act nicer to each other and sometimes go on friendly trips together. That was what it seemed like it meant from the way Mabel was acting, anyway. Or maybe Pacifica got invited because they were all preteen girls – except Wendy might be a teenager, but Pacifica thought she was still only twelve – and Dr. Ford did just take them all to meet real live unicorns, so maybe that was more important than being friends or rivals or enemies or whatever.

But nobody said anything about Pacifica leaving, not even when Dr. Ford opened the back door to the house for them and they all went inside. In that case Pacifica decided she wouldn't say anything either. She thought maybe this is when they would all crowd together and eat junk food and talk about the unicorns some more, and Pacifica wanted to stay for that. Her parents never let her eat potato chips or drink pop because they said it was poor people food, but Pacifica liked the salty crunch and the sweet fizz of it, even if it was common. And she wanted to talk about the unicorns too; they weren't like what any of them were expecting, but Pacifica really liked them anyway. She was pretty sure that she and Celestabellebethabelle were kindred spirits, or they would be as soon as Celestabellebethabelle realized Pacifica was the one in charge.

As soon as the door closed, a voice and footsteps came from the other side of the house, heading in their direction. "Grunkle Ford, is that you guys back from the unicorn thing? You'll never guess what came in the mail today!" called Dipper. He entered through the doorway to the living room right after, holding the lid to a game box with some fantasy creatures on it and the word dungeons like a million times.

"The latest edition!" Dr. Ford said.

"Yeah, Fiddleford and I are already setting it up for all of us to play in the other room. I figured you'd probably want to play Candy, and Mabel remember you promised you would play a round if Grunkle Ford and I did your math. And…"

Dipper kept babbling on excitedly, but Pacifica started tuning him out. She guessed she was going to be asked to leave after all, if they were all going to go play his nerd game. That was fine; she had her cell phone so she could call her driver to come pick her up and wait out front for him to get here. She could talk with the girls about unicorns and eat junk food next time. If they invited her again.

"Pacifica?" She was startled and looked up to find Dipper looking back at her. "You're going to play too, right? The game is more fun with more people, and we can help you come up with a really cool character to play as, since you haven't ever played before. You could be a princess, like Princess Unattainabelle's little sister or something. And we'll do all your math and charts for you too, okay?"

"I can do my own math," Pacifica said without thinking about it. Just because she wasn't a nerd didn't mean she was dumb. Then she realized that saying that was kind of like agreeing to play the dungeons game with them, and really it wasn't like she had anything else to do anyway. "And I want my character to have a pet unicorn."

It turned out Pacifica wasn't allowed to start the game off with a unicorn, and unicorns couldn't even be kept as pets in the game at all. But they showed her how to make a character with creature taming powers and told her that they might encounter some unicorns as they played and she could use her powers to befriend one of them, which Pacifica decided was an acceptable compromise, especially since there was plenty of junk food to snack on while she was waiting to get to the unicorns. And, you know, the game itself wasn't actually completely terrible either. It was maybe even kind of fun, and whenever the math started to get too hard for her, Fiddleford, who had somehow ended up sitting next to her and thankfully no longer smelled like a dumpster fire, would lean over and solve the equation for her without anyone saying anything about it.

About three hours later, after they had just finished a surprisingly intense battle with Probabilitor's second-in-command, they were taking a minute for a breather when Dipper asked, "Who took the last apricot flavor?"

Pacifica held her can of pop up, "You snooze, you lose."

"You're the worst." Pacifica froze. She and Dipper weren't friends, but she had thought when he invited her to play D,D, and more D with everyone it meant that he didn't think of them as enemies any more either. She thought that maybe they were something like best rivals like she and Mabel were, but obviously Dipper had just asked her because of his weird poor people politeness which was so different than the kind of politeness her mother taught her. He probably wished she had said no and just wanted her to leave.

"You owe me a can for next time," he continued, smiling a bit. Oh. He was just teasing her. Well Pacifica could tease. She was really good at mocking, anyway, and teasing was probably pretty similar.

"I'll bring you a whole case next time if you don't make me play your nerd game again," she said.

"You tell it, sister," Grenda said, then held her hand up in the air. Pacifica stared at it, confused, before she remembered what she was supposed to do and lightly slapped her hand against Grenda's.

Dipper was still looking at Pacifica, so she took a long drink from her can of pop, never breaking eye contact with him. Dipper stuck his tongue out at her, and Pacifica, with her mouth safely hidden behind her can, grinned.

 **July 2012**

"You're the worst! I can't believe you roped me into taking out a Category 10 ghost just so your parents didn't have to invite the rest of the townsfolk to your stupid party. Category 10, Pacifica."

"Okay nerd, first of all, no one even knows what a Category 10 ghost is besides you and your nerdy uncle. And-" Pacifica tripped, because of course she did, she was wearing high heels to go ghost hunting. That was like the most impractical footwear for chasing down cryptids. Maybe second-most after flippers. Dipper offered her his arm to use to help her regain her balance, after which she threw him an absent-minded "thanks" before continuing. "And anyway, I obviously didn't know there was literally going to be blood coming from the walls. I would have asked Dr. Ford to take care of it if I'd know it was going to be Category 10 dangerous, or whatever."

"The walls weren't bleeding, the creepy collection of mounted animal heads were bleeding," Dipper corrected. He stepped off the main path, heading toward the tree stump he'd set up with his candles earlier for the exorcism, and slowed down a bit so Pacifica and her stupid shoes could keep up.

"Like it matters," Pacifica said dismissively.

"Yeah it matters. If this guy were powerful enough to make the actual walls bleed, I'm pretty sure we'd all already be dead. But that's not the point. The point is if a crazy powerful ghost casts a curse on your family, then maybe instead of putting everyone at risk trying an exorcism, you should just do what he wants and invite a couple more people to your party," Dipper snapped.

"Maybe, but it's not like I have any control over my parents' guest list," Pacifica snapped back. "And I didn't exactly know about the whole curse thing anyway. I mean, I knew there was a ghost and I knew he was probably going to try to wreck our party, but my parents decided to spare me any of the details."

"Oh," Dipper said. That made sense. Or, it didn't really make sense, but it sounded like something Mr. and Mrs. Northwest would do. Whatever Dipper might say about Pacifica, her parents really were literally the worst. "Sorry."

Pacifica gave a shrug that looked like it was supposed to be a lot more casual than it really was. "Whatever."

"Hey, so why did you ask me instead of Grunkle Ford?" Dipper asked. It wasn't that Dipper minded helping – well, he didn't mind helping Pacifica; he was admittedly a little less excited about helping her parents escape ghostly justice – but even if he was good at all the supernatural stuff, Dipper was still just a kid. Grunkle Ford was the real expert.

"Well, whoever I asked to take care of the ghost was going to have to attend at least some of the party, so I thought you were a better choice than Dr. Ford. Kids get overlooked more easily, so the party was less likely to be ruined by the presence of a poor person. That's all."

Dipper eyed Pacifica side-long. "You know, if you wanted us to come to the party, you could have just invited us. I mean, I guess your parents wouldn't have been too thrilled, but we could have told them the tickets were our fee for ghost catching. Or we could have just snuck in; you know Mabel's always up for any excuse to break out her grappling hook."

"I didn't– Look, don't you have an exorcism to perform or something?" Pacifica demanded.

If he were Mabel, then this would be the part where Dipper hounded Pacifica about what great friends they were and how, despite her aloof act, Pacifica totally loved spending time with all them until Pacifica had no choice but to give in. But Dipper wasn't Mabel, so he just said, "Yeah, sure," before setting the mirror down so he could start on the candles.

They were about halfway done lighting the candles – Dipper using a lighter and Pacifica the first candle he'd lit – when the ghost spoke up. "Pacifica, Pacifica. Just let me out of this mirror, and I'll spare you when I get my vengeance on the Northwests."

"I'm not going to break you out so you can kill my parents," Pacifica said.

"Not to mention, you seem a little unstable, man. If she let you out, you'd probably decide that breaking your word to a Northwest was just punishment and go after her first," Dipper pointed out.

"Very well, children. Then, before you banish my soul, may these tired lumber eyes gaze upon the trees one final time?"

Pacifica looked at Dipper, and he shrugged. It seemed like a pretty harmless last request, and Dipper did kind of feel sorry for the guy. Pacifica must have too, because she picked the mirror up and held it to face the trees. Then the ghost started laughing manically, the mirror glowed bright red, Pacifica let out a yelp, dropped it, the mirror hit the ground, shattered, the ghost was freed, and he flew off cackling about vengeance. So maybe not that harmless. Though on the plus side, he was apparently going to keep his word about sparing Pacifica after all.

Dipper was about to take off running toward the house – he might not like Pacifica's parents, but that didn't mean he wanted them killed by a crazy lumberjack ghost – but he was stopped by Pacifica shouting. "Oh my god, seriously? Ugh, fine, whatever."

"Where are you going?" Dipper asked, as he jogged to catch up with Pacifica stalking off in the opposite direction of the mansion.

"Down to the gatehouse to tell them to let everyone in," Pacifica said.

"Won't that make your parents mad?" Dipper asked, in spite of the rather large part of himself telling him to shut up and not make Pacifica second-guess her decision.

"It's better than getting cursed by a Category 10 ghost. Even if I'm not sure they'll see it that way," Pacifica answered. "Besides, most of the people I actually like are on the other side of the gate anyway."

Dipper gave her a sly glance. " _Most_ of the people?"

"Shut up," Pacifica said, smacking him on the back of the head. Dipper just grinned.

 **April 2015**

Pacifica wanted to play with Dipper's hair.

This was all Dipper's fault, obviously. If it weren't for Dipper then Pacifica wouldn't have even come to the Shack today, more or less. Ever since Pacifica had started high school, her dad had been spending a lot more time teaching her some of the finer aspects of running a business, and she actually really enjoyed it, in no small part because she was, quite frankly, amazing at it. Unfortunately today's impromptu tutoring session ended the way most of them did, with her dad wanting her to do something… ethically questionable, causing her conscience to speak up in a voice that sounded a lot like Dipper. Not that her conscience always sounded like Dipper, it just did most of the time, when it wasn't sounding like Mabel or Candy or Grenda or Soos or any of the other people that seemed to like having Pacifica hanging around in spite of her being a Northwest rather than because of it, including, on one very disturbing occasion, Stan. Of course, Pacifica wasn't stupid enough to tell her dad that she wouldn't do what he wanted her to because an imaginary Dipper that lived in her head had told her not to, but she did tell him no, after which her dad had… Well, sufficed to say that she left the mansion as soon as she could. Luckily, she was welcome in the Mystery Shack any time, day or night, no questions asked, though there were occasionally a lot of concerned glances exchanged that Pacifica pretended not to notice.

Once she had arrived, the twins dragged Pacifica up to their attic room for a marathon of Season 3 of Duck-tective, as part of their continuing campaign to prove that it was the best show ever. Pacifica remained unconvinced. Mabel had at least three ongoing craft projects that had taken over half the couch, as per usual, and Pacifica had sprawled herself out across the remaining half. Rather than dragging one of the myriad chairs over to sit on like a normal person, Dipper instead choose to sit on the floor right in front of the couch, which meant his head and his stupid chocolate-brown slightly-curly hair was right there in front of Pacifica in her clear line of sight. See, all Dipper's fault.

This was stupid, though. Pacifica should just start playing with Mabel's hair. The two of them had basically the same hair after all, except Mabel's was longer and so there would be more for Pacifica to play with. Not to mention that Mabel would be totally happy to have Pacifica play with her hair, while Dipper would probably complain and moan and tell Pacifica to cut out it out.

Well, forget that. She was Pacifica Northwest and no one told her what to do, especially not Dipper Pines. If she wanted to play with his hair, then she would play with his hair, and Dipper could just suck it up.

Pacifica reached down and started trying to fluff Dipper's hair into a Mohawk. "Pacifica, what are you doing?" Dipper asked.

"Playing with your hair." Huh, this was harder than she'd thought it'd be, considering his hair's tendency to stick out all over the place. Maybe if she got some product, but that seemed like cheating.

"What, why? Play with Mabel's hair."

"Oooo, can you give me a French braid? I can never get them tight enough when I'm doing them on myself," Mabel said.

"Later. Right now I'm playing with Dipper's hair," Pacifica answered. She gave up on the Mohawk in favor of seeing how much of Dipper's hair she could get standing straight up, sort of like those guys from the animes Soos was always watching.

"Ugh, you're the worst," Dipper said, but he still sat up a little straighter to give her better access.

"And you're a nerd," Pacifica told him. Once she was done making his hair stand straight up, she tried puffing it out like an afro, then pressed it all as flat and smooth as she could get it, and then finally gave him three tiny braids near the base of his skull. By that point, Pacifica had successfully quashed all the little butterflies that had started fluttering in her stomach when she first ran her fingers through Dipper's hair, and after she'd finished giving Mabel her French braid, Pacifica had managed to convince herself she had only ever imagined them in the first place.

 **February 2017**

Dipper opened the door then blinked in surprise at seeing Pacifica standing on the other side. "Hey, happy birthday! We weren't expecting you until tomorrow." It was a long-standing tradition; every year on her birthday Pacifica's parents threw her a crazy fancy and lavish party, and every year on the day after her birthday Mabel and whoever she had roped into helping that year – usually pretty much everyone – threw Pacifica her _real_ birthday party.

What he didn't mention, what they never mentioned outside of when it was actually happening, was he had been half-expecting – really more like three-quarters-expecting – her to show up sometime late that night after the party at her parent's place had died down. That was how the tradition of the second party had originally got started, back when Dipper and Mabel had been roused from their beds at two in the morning by a freshly eleven Pacifica who had only just barely not been crying. In later years Pacifica would tell them a little about what it was like, about making nice to people flashing razor-edged smiles, about being constantly on-guard and knowing that even if everything went perfectly, people would still find excuses to mock behind her back, about the constant pressure of expectations weighing down until she felt like she couldn't breathe, and about the gentle tinkling of a bell, but on that first night she had just called the party 'a little much' and said she needed to get away for a bit. Even though it had been a school night, they had stayed up with her until dawn, watching the bizarre selection available on Gravity Falls late night public access. The next day after school Mabel had dragged Pacifica home with them, then made everyone in the house sit down in the kitchen and play board games with Pacifica while Mabel baked her a cake. Pacifica hadn't come over every night after her birthday, but she had occasionally, and the Pines family always slept light that night just in case.

Thinking about it, Pacifica's expression now was almost identical to one she had been wearing that night seven years ago, except maybe her thin veneer of control had gotten even thinner. Also, seven years ago she hadn't been carrying a suitcase. "Pacifica? What's wrong?"

Pacifica made it three more steps, the exact distance between the two of them, before she broke. She clung to the front of Dipper shirt, buried her head in his chest, and sobbed. Dipper would say she was sobbing like the world was ending, except they'd come pretty close to just that a time or two over the years and Dipper had never seen her cry like this. Pacifica was calm, collected, and in charge; she was one of the strongest people Dipper knew, and Dipper knew a lot of strong people. Sure, he'd seen her cry before a few times, but not often and not anywhere near this hard. It made a not insignificant part of him want to panic.

He pushed that part of himself to the side. Pacifica crying was not a sign of the apocalypse, because Pacifica didn't consider the apocalypse worth crying over. If the world was about to end, then she'd either be helping to fix the problem, or be doing something she considered worthwhile in her final hours, possibly getting her nails done so that when impending doom arrived she looked good for it. No, there was only one thing that Pacifica would cry over, and it didn't call for panic. And since punching Preston and Priscilla Northwest in the face would almost certainly get him arrested, the situation probably didn't call for unrestrained fury either.

Instead Dipper wrapped his arms around Pacifica and held her tight. Dipper wasn't all that great at comforting people, and he didn't ever know what to say, but he did his best, rubbing his hand up and down here back and murmuring little nothings like "it'll be okay" and "I've got you" and "let it out." He must have been doing something right, because Pacifica didn't immediately abandon him for Mabel, who was way better at the comforting thing, as soon as the latter showed up.

It was probably a good twenty minutes before Pacifica was calm enough that Dipper felt comfortable repeating his earlier question. "What happened?"

Pacifica took a step back out of his arms and for a moment she just stood there with her eyes tightly shut and fist clenched at her sides. Then with a forceful exhale she released all her tension and her eyes snapped back open. To someone who didn't know her as well as he did, she looked and sounded almost like her normal self as she answered. "I came down to breakfast this morning and there were two things waiting at my normal seat: the dress mother selected for me to wear to my birthday gala this evening and a packed suitcase. They gave me a choice between the two. As you can see, I choose the suitcase."

Dipper suspected there was a lot more to the story than that. If nothing else, there was a conspicuous lack of the ubiquitous bell, the one that always made Dipper want to break out the blow torch – not that he would, not after what had happened last time. Mabel looked over at Dipper, and when he locked eyes with her he could tell that she could hear the skipped spots in Pacifica's story just as well as he could, but they both silently agreed not to dig deeper at the moment. The remaining details would come out sometime, days or weeks or even months from now, in the dead of night when the dark and the quiet made secrets easier to share, and they could wait until then.

"What do you need?" Dipper asked, largely because he knew that what Pacifica most needed was the opportunity to take charge again.

He expected her to answer in practical terms with regards to her situation: she needed somewhere to stay – the Shack and the spare twin bed in Mabel's room, Dipper's old one before he got too tall for it, would be fine for the next few nights, but long-term it would probably be better to ask Fiddleford, since he was the only one with the space for Pacifica to have her own bedroom – she needed more clothes than what her parents packed for her – Mabel could probably make an entire wardrobe worth of clothing to Pacifica's exact specifications in a ridiculously short amount of time – she needed help sorting out what she was going to do after high school now that she didn't have the Northwest money or name to fall back on – a lot of colleges had already closed their application windows, but not all of them and Dipper was fast becoming an expert at finding and applying for scholarships and financial aid – and other things like that.

Still, he wasn't exactly surprised when she said, "I'd like to move my party to today. If we can."

"Of course we can; today is your birthday after all!" Mabel said. "I'll call up all the girls and let them know about the change of plans, then go get started on the food. Dipper, you call the guys and then get started on the sprucing this place up. Pacifica, you supervise Dipper to make sure he doesn't mess up the decorations."

"I'm perfectly capable of handling some party decorations," Dipper called after Mabel as she flitted out of the room, but she ignored him. Pacifica didn't offer any sort of snarky quip about his sense of aesthetics either, and that more than anything proved to him that she wasn't nearly as okay as she was pretending to be. He turned back to look at her and wished he knew the perfect words to say to make everything alright again. "Pacifica I… I… you're the worst?"

Pacifica's lips twitched, not enough to call it a smile, but it was a real almost-smile, and a small spark of the usual fire appeared in her eyes. "Shut up, nerd, and get to decorating."

 **June 2021**

Pacifica was feeling a little bit guilty for bailing on the party, even though she knew none of her friends would be angry at her for it or blame her for needing a little space to herself. Really, the party was only being held one-fifth in her honor anyway. The other four-fifths were for Dipper, Mabel, Candy, and Grenda, as all five of them had managed to graduate college at the same time. More or less; completely aside from each of the four different schools they had gone to having a different end dates for the spring quarter/semester, Mabel still had a summer abroad program to complete before she officially graduated, Dipper was starting school right up again in the fall for his PhD, and Pacifica was actually planning on more school as well, though she was sticking to night classes and online courses to get her MBA. Still, it was close enough, and they all had decided that having one joint party for graduation was more fun anyway.

Pacifica leaned back a little more, feeling the rough wood of the Mystery Shack's back deck against her palms, and decided that she was also feeling a little bit like she wished she would have thought to grab a pop before bailing on the party. Oh well, she'd get one later when she went back in. It wasn't like she was planning on staying out all night or anything. It was just that everyone else was playing a card game that Grenda had learned from one of her friends at school which involved at lot of hands pounding and slapping down on the table and an inordinate amount of shouting – though, to be fair, pretty much everything with this group involved inordinate amount of shouting – and Pacifica was never up for more than one round of it. She'd sit out here for a little while and when it sounded like the pounding and slapping had died down a bit she'd rejoin everyone.

The door creaked open behind her, and Pacifica glanced over her shoulder to see Dipper coming out with a can of pop in either hand. "Here, you can owe me one for next time," he said, handing her one of the cans.

"Have I ever actually gotten you one the next time?" Pacifica asked. She popped the top on her pop and took a sip without waiting for an answer; it was a rhetorical question anyway.

"I live in hope," Dipper replied good-naturedly, and Pacifica flashed him a grin.

"So," Pacifica said a moment later when it appeared Dipper wasn't going to talk or do anything besides drum nervously on the top of his unopened can. "Did you get tired of card games too? Or have you got something on your mind?"

"No. I mean yes. I mean I kind of have something I want to ask, tell, ask you," Dipper said.

Pacifica smiled, even though she found it monstrously unfair that someone could be that adorable when they were a nervous wreck. "I'm all ears."

Dipper cleared his throat and passed a hand through his hair. Mabel had dug up Dipper's old lucky cap earlier and stuck it on his head as "an auspicious beginning to our new educated lives," but he must have taken it off before coming outside. Despite what Pacifica had just said, she found herself interrupting Dipper's train of thought to say, "I like you better without the hat."

"I – Really?" Dipper asked, flushing.

"Yes, well I admit you pull off the trucker hat look better than most people, but that's not the same thing as actually pulling it off," Pacifica said. Besides, while she knew that Dipper's hat thing had lasted as long as it did because he had apparently genuinely loved hats for some reason, Pacifica had been there with him in middle school and she knew why he had started wearing hats in the first place. She liked him better without.

"Thanks, I think," Dipper said. "That is kind of related to what I wanted to talk to you about."

"You wanted to talk to me about your hat?" Pacifica asked. That's really not where she'd pictured this conversation going.

"No, not about my hat. But you said I looked better without my hat and I was just thinking that… ugh. Look okay, I know I'm not that good-looking…"

That certainly wasn't true. Pacifica could see how he might have gotten that idea into his head, since Dipper's awkward phase had been really long and _really_ awkward to be honest, but he had cleaned up considerably in the past couple of years. He'd always had good muscle tone, but it wasn't until he'd stopped sprouting up like a beanpole and had a chance to fill out a bit that you could actually tell that by looking at him. Then there was that weird teenaged boy aversion to basic hygiene that he'd snapped out of after about a month of college; he'd actually called Pacifica to get her advice on different types of face wash for his acne and she could have cried for joy. And of course there was that one ex of Dipper's that Pacifica had always thought was just a little too soft for him, but she loved the girl anyway, since she'd finally managed to convince Dipper to get his hair cut by someone who actually knew what the hell they were doing and now his curls tended to look artfully tousled instead of just messy. There were other subtler things that were harder to define that had changed too, something about the line of his jaw and the set of his shoulders and the like. The end result was Dipper definitely wasn't in the awkward phase any more. Pacifica would even call him good-looking. Very good-looking.

"… and I know I'm not rich…"

Rich was really a relative term, Pacifica had come to realize sometime after her parents had kicked her out. She had been abstractly aware before there were shades to wealthiness, but it wasn't until she no longer had a seemingly endless supply of money at her beck and call she really understood it, understood, and appreciated how lucky she had been to have people that cared enough about her to not let her end up on the streets. So Dipper was right in that, even with the million dollars he had inherited from his deceased parents when he turned eighteen, he was nothing like rich as compared to Pacifica's parents or Fiddleford, but as compared to Pacifica with her precisely one bank account totaling precisely two hundred thirty-six dollars and seventy-nine cents, he was stupidly wealthy.

"… and I know I'm a nerd…"

Of course he was a nerd, but he didn't have to say it like it was a bad thing. Pacifica liked that he was a nerd; she wouldn't keep bringing it up otherwise. When she had been younger Pacifica wasted a lot of time looking down on other people for every single flaw she could hunt out in them. That was what her parents had always done, and she had just assumed that was the way everybody did things. It wasn't until after Pacifica started making friends, real friends not well-groomed and carefully selected lackeys, that she realized the whole thing was just a waste of energy. She had no problem making her opinion known, good or bad, when it was relevant and appropriate, but she had better things to do with her time than belittle everyone that crossed her path. She tried to focus her attention on things she liked instead, like Dipper and his nerdiness.

"… and I know you're way out of my league…"

Well now he was just being ridiculous. Pacifica's fault for just letting him go on and on, probably. So to shut him up, she leaned in and kissed him.

In between strategizing the best way and time to ask Dipper out herself, coming up with a long list of reasons why dating Dipper was a terrible idea that was bound to end horribly and ruin everything, and being deep in denial over having ever so much as thought the words "Dipper" and "dating" in the same sentence, Pacifica had come up with a plan of how she would respond if Dipper were to ask her out. She would interrupt his babbling – because if Dipper ever did get the nerve up to ask her out then he would definitely be babbling – with a firm kiss. Having made her point she would then flash a wry grin and say something witty. Her standby was currently "You can pick me up Friday at eight," but honestly she wasn't crazy about how cliché that sounded and was mostly just planning on going with whatever felt right in the moment.

The one thing that in all her planning she'd somehow managed to overlook was kissing Dipper to shut him up involved _kissing Dipper_ , something that she'd wanted to do since… well, she didn't like to think too closely on exactly how long she'd wanted to do that, mostly because she didn't actually know for sure. A long time at any rate. Now that Pacifica was finally doing it, what felt right in the moment was kissing him some more. So she did.

Dipper had been wanting to kiss Pacifica for about as long as Pacifica had been wanting to kiss him, or so she assumed by the way he was kissing her back, like not being able to kiss her all along had been killing him by inches, and now he had to make up for lost time. Making up for lost time, now there was a thought. In fact it was the last completely formed and coherent one that Pacifica had for a while.

The back door opened and Dipper and Pacifica – now sitting across Dipper's lap, a position she could only vaguely recall getting in – both startled. Stan was standing in the doorway with a look of smug amusement. "I guess I'll go out front for my fresh air. You two get back to finally getting your acts together," he said. He went back inside, but his voice still echoed through the closed door for a minute. "Hey Ford, you owe me ten bucks."

Dipper and Pacifica looked back at each other. Dipper's expression was a mixture of embarrassment and guilt, like a little kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Pacifica knew she must look the same, but something about Dipper's face was unbearably funny, and she could help but laugh.

Dipper scowled at her. "You're the worst."

"You love it, nerd," she said teasingly.

Dipper's expression softened as he smiled at her and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Yeah. I really do."


End file.
